The Mantic Pundit has been retired.  As the phoenix rose from the ashes, so the Mantic Pundit rises again as the OWASM...  Old White Anglo Saxon Male.  Go to www.owasm.com for new adventures in cranky opinion.

In many family relationships, there is a power hierarchy among the children.  It is often age related because older kids are bigger sooner.  There are a lot of dynamics at play and all relationships are different, however, there is always a kind of "dhimmitude" or submission on the part of younger children in their relationship to their older siblings. 

For some families, this results in some pretty serious sibling rivalry as the younger child will often rebel against the older child's sense of privilege of being older and their insistence on deference.

For other families, the older child may resent the ascendency of competence of a younger child and the sibling rivalry that ensues can cause conflict.

In our current political conflict, these same forces are at play.  For decades the Dems dominated both houses of Congress... they felt that they deserved deference.  All of a sudden, the Republicans... the littler, less consequential child, has the power.  As we have seen, all hell has broken loose.

President Bush tried to show equality by inviting the Clinton's and the Kennedy's into the White House for various events honoring them.  What has he gotten in return?  Well the Clinton's and Kennedy's will have no part of the younger child honoring them.  That implies a position of power on the part of President Bush.  Once the ceremonies are over, the Clinton's and the Kennedy's along with the rest of the Democrat party can think of nothing better than to slam those upstart Republicans.  Being nice to the older brother is seen as condescension not amity on the part of the older child.

The Republican Congress for their part have had a different reaction.  It has been a deeply conflicted one.  On one hand, Trent Lott came up with a power sharing arrangement when the Republicans had a super-slim majority.  What did the Democrats do?  They obstructed, ranted, raved and spewed venom on their Republican counterparts at every turn.  There was no propriety, collegiality, maturity.  It was and has been utter nastiness on the part of the Dems.  Once the tables turn, the "older sibling" Dems continue to bully and persecute.  There is no quarter given the "younger sibling".  There can't be for the disgrace heaped upon the Dems, having their "younger sibling" rule over them.

The conflicted aspect is evident in the sense of privilege the Republican Congress... especially the House, in taking advantage of their majority.  Ethics?  That's for the other guy.  Power?  That's the focus... maintain their power at all costs.  Rather than govern intelligently, the Republican Congress clumsily exercised authority (still giving undue deference to the Dems) by ignoring the charge their electorates gave them.  And they blew it big time.

The war in Iraq is a convenient excuse the Republican House gave for loosing the 2006 elections.  The real reason they lost is because the public didn't like the way the House focused on retaining power.  The De Lay issue... the other sexual and bribery scandals as well as the overall tone turned voters off.   The anti-Republican press did their part to publicize the worst aspects of the Republicans and it worked.

And now we are faced with the relentless bullying of the Dems.  Their performance on the Iraq War was absolutely disgraceful and bordered on treason... it still does.  They have had their own hypocrisy exposed and it will continue when General Petraeus provides his interim report on the Surge strategy.

The issues of "dhimmitude" on the part of the administration still needs to be addressed.  The deference the Republicans and the President will show to the Dens will be pathetic.  Those who so viciously attacked the war and declared defeat should be relentlessly pursued and exposed... but that won't happen.

The rivalry will continue, but until the Republican party can get out of the "younger sibling" role and act with maturity and external purpose, this internecine political war will continue.

Reading in various blogs yesterday, there was even a suggestion that Rove was the Republican Voldemort.  In the WSJ this morning, the headlines indicated that there is no longer a hardball, driving force in the Republican party. 

We are not privy to the inner workings of the White House.  Rove was not a "shadow president" controlling Pres. Bush's every thought and action.  He was an advisor.  In electoral politics he was really, really good... but he was still one of many.  Perhaps he was number #1, but from everything I hear, Bush is pretty much his own man, for good or ill.

Rove's departure will both be a benefit and a detriment.  The Republican party in the last 8 years is much more fragmented due to actions by the Bush administration (This was brought up on Laura Ingraham's radio show this morning and discussed in some detail.)  If Rove was the driving force behind immigration, then his departure will serve to strengthen the grass roots.  If Rove was behind the Harriet Meiers debacle, it is just as well he leaves.  There have been some pretty bone-headed moves by the Administration.  We just don't know which of those were Rove's, which was Pres. Bush's or which was from one of the other 1,000 White House staffers.

Bush will not run for President again.  Rove's political work with Bush is finished.  He deserves a rest.  History will likely portray him as a smart advisor.  History, if it is impartially written, will also show how the left used Rove as a personification of everything wrong in the Republican party and used him as a hate object, as they have done with Cheney and Bush.  The true story will be somewhat different.

Rove's not Voldemort.  Let's get over the fact that he is gone and move on.  There are lots of issues left to concentrate on.

Again, the Dems show the country that they are Socialist Cowards.  Just when we see the cowardly side so plainly exposed as the current surge in Iraq is showing signs of remarkable effectivity, the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) is voted on by the house.

The hurdle for inclusion in this program is a "child" has to be under 25 and the household income of a family of four must be below 83K or so.  That means someone making $40 bucks an hour is "poor" enough to be eligible.  Included in the bill is a whole raft of mandates and the Medicare choice program is eviscerated.

What is going on?  This is a blatant attempt... a giant step, to envelope the nation in socialized health care.  Socialized health care is not the best delivery system.  Once this happens, the next step will be "Big Pharma" regulation.  That will dramatically reduce the drugs coming to market as the Dems will zero in on reducing prices of drugs, thereby starving the development engine of pharmaceutical companies.  The risk/reward equation will shift dramatically.  How can I say this?  Look at the big European Pharma houses.  The great bulk of their development efforts have been moved over to the U.S.

Dems just don't get it.  They want us to be as cowardly as the Europeans and live like they do.  They want a high tax/high service environment.  That is the best way of preserving power.  And it is very apparent that Dems are really, really in to power. 

Let's all hope President Bush vetoes this shameless attempt at creeping Socialism and the nation is made aware of the effects of the bill like they were on illegal immigration.

"The War Is Lost!"  So says Harry Reid the Commander-in-Chief of the Democrat forces in the U.S. Senate.  He is echoing the cries throughout his party.   Now I am sure there are a few stalwart Dems who feel otherwise.  Sen. Lieberman was forced out of the Democrat Party by the anti-war left.  There are a number of House members, Democrats, who still feel committed to their previous stands.  Not so for MOST of the party.

In an era where allies look for trust and credibility, the Democrats balk.  One can count on their turncoat attitudes if the political wind blows in another direction.  Just look at all of the silence to Pres. Clinton's invasion of Bosnia.  Look at all of the domestic positioning against Republican abuse of power.  Yet, now that the shoe is on the other foot there is a plethora of changed Democrat positions.

That isn't to say the Republican party is averse to changing its views from time to time, it's just that the Democrat party is so blatant and so overwhelming in its hypocrisy.  Reading positions from the end of the Clinton administration can be instructive where the Democrat positions have changed 180 degrees in 8 years.  That's some kind of "growth".

To the American people and to the world at large, it shows that if Democrats are in power, they can be easily manipulated by positioning problems as political.   "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".  This is Democrat gospel.  Iran, Syria, Al Qaeda all know how to take advantage of the Democrats and the willing press if they can get on the side of the "Anti-Bush".  It doesn't matter about our international committments.  It doesn't matter about our national security.  It doesn't matter about special relationship with Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East.  It only matters about taking it to President Bush.

The Democrats are unwitting accomplices of radical Islam.  They are showing the world how to add "paper" to "tiger".  What is remarkably alarming is that the Democrats are moving towards international statism.  They are intent on destroying America.  Indeed the far-left of their party are rabid America-haters.  Patriots?  Not on your life.  Internationalists?  You betcha!

Republicans need to expose the Democrats for what they are.  They need to fight for America, for our individual freedoms and for our right to exist as an independent nation.  They, along with unwitting Republican accomplices in the government, are intent on creating a borderless North America.  For President Bush, it probably isn't so unwitting.  

We need to show the world that the U.S. is all about strength and independence.  We need to stick with the Iraqis until they can fight the radical Islamist forces that resort to utter barbarism.  We need to show the world that we mean what we say.  We need to show the world that we can rise from the cynical manipulation of a left-wing agenda-driven national media and demonstrate independence.   

Our 'friends" in Washington, members of both parties, are working against the people.  The people need to rise up and show what independence really means.   We were successful in the recent amnesty debacle.  We can be successful in the future.

After watching the Democrat/YouTube debate last night, I am struck by the fact that the Republicans are not doing a sufficient job in focusing on what differentiates them from the Dems. 

Why isn't there a debate on Universal Health Care? 

Why isn't there a debate Global Warming when even more scientists are coming forward to debunk the notion that we are warming up due to the effects of man-made CO2? 

Why isn't there a debate on the creeping Socialism in the country and it's attendant affects on our unique set of Freedoms in the U.S.?  Taxes on oil?  Taxes on drug companies?

Why isn't there a pressing of the illegal immigration debate?

Why isn't there a debate on realistic energy management (more refineries, nuclear power, enhanced extraction strategies such as ANWR and shale oil)?

Why are we clinging to ethanol when it is apparent that there are drastic dislocations to our economy in energy costs, food costs and agricultural capacity?

Why aren't the non-congressional candidates slamming the special interest Senate and House?

Where is the focus?  We are in a fight for our nation internally, every bit as threatening to our way of life as the Islamist threat.  Yet, there is no effort to fight against the massive mis-information out there.  I see public service announcements of children saying "tick, tick, tick" as if there is a CO2 time bomb out there with no public service announcements or advertisements of any kind say it's a bunch of bunk.

Now is the time to break down the public perceptions  I see stalwart conservative pundits decrying a Democrat victory.  Why? 

There is a huge Democrat rock rolling down the hill.  However, that rock is hollow.  Inside are empty promises and fallacious arguments.  We can stop the rock, but we must put up a strong enough barrier to break it.  No one seems to be doing anything about it.   We need to sharpen our conservative focus and organize like we did to stop the amnesty bill.  We need a war plan and do battle with the cowards and anti-patriots that haven't a clue what made America great...

As a result of the immigration 'reform' act recently denied cloture in the U.S. Senate, a chasm of some proportions has been discovered in the Republican Party.  It pits Big Government/Big Business/Country Club/'Moderate' Republicans against both social and fiscal conservatives.  It has become much easier to see who is who.  I have a Senator who has been shown to be very much a Country Club Republican.  Luckily he heeded his constituency and voted against cloture.

George Bush has been, always, a Country Club/Big Government Republican.  The compassionate conservative moniker was merely a term used to garner support from the right in the party.   Since Bush is definitely a Republican, he has often made common cause with the conservative side.  However, when you look at some of his programs, they are right there with Big Government/Big Business.  Steel tariffs helped big producers but whacked the heck out of little producers.  No Child Left Behind and the expansion of the Department of Education were definitely Big Government Republicanism as was the Prescription Drug Medicare program.

Tax cuts were an area where both the left wing and right wing of the Republican Party agree, so Bush pushed and succeeded.  A virtually veto-less spendthrift Congress was a result of Bush's Big Government frame of mind.  This leads us to the latest Big Business measure, open borders... supported so passionately by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street Journal.  Bush has always been a proponent of open borders and the 'comprehensive immigration reform' effort was an indicator of that. 

Just like his father, Bush without the War on Terror is just another Country Club Republican in office.  He will likely go down in history as just as (in)competent as his dad.  What a disappointment for genuine conservatives.  Now Bush is definitely better than any Democrat, but one must still hold one's nose when remembering Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzalez.   Mediocrity and Loyalty trump competence every time in the Bush White House.

Conservatives have been given short shrift throughout the Bush administration... it's just that we didn't believe we were being so thoroughly marginalized.  We were.  Although so many on the left have thought Bush to be a little less than normal...  it appears that so have we conservatives by the Bush Administration.  Bush in the center, sees wackos to the left of him and, unfortunately, wackos to the right of him.  He sits in the middle, grimaces, and continues to make strategic and tactical errors throughout his presidency.

The left makes a big deal on this schism.  Although our feelings are hurt, when push comes to shove in the Presidential election in 2008, there is no doubt that the party will pull together.  The conservatives will move to nominate a "righter" candidate than Bush.  It won't take much.  Again, any Republican will be better than the Socialist/Communist candidates (Edwards/Obama/Clinton) of the Democrats and their far left wing.

Illegal immigration is a real problem.  It could use fixing.  The current legislation is deeply flawed, but is an attempt at fixing the problem.  There are triggers and safeguards in the bill.  There are a lot of enforcement provisions in the bill.  If the citizens of the U.S. could rely on the bill actually being executed as promised and not manipulated and redefined in practice, there might be a lot more support.  However the issue is that a great swath of the washed masses of the U.S. do not trust Congress, Bush and his administration and any future administration, especially Democrat to act honorably.

It gets down to trust.  There is a reason why the country has such a low opinion of Congress and of the President.  There is a crisis in confidence.  Among Bush's base, there is a lack of trust that he can control anything and that he can make solid impartial decisions.  We see him being the "Spending President", the "Open Borders President", The Bad War Manager President", among others. 

Congress is no better.  This illegal immigration bill has been rammed down the throats of the citizens.  No one trusts Congress to do the right thing.  Sure this seems to be a bi-partisan bill... Rinos and Dems vs. Conservatives.  I throw Bush in the Rino category at this juncture of his administration.  Rather than showing strength he is caving in to everything. 

However, give Bush credit, he has always been an open borders proponent.  However his leadership in securing our border has been dreadful... and that's a fact.  We can't trust Bush to seal the border.  We can't trust an uncredible Congress to keep any measure for long without sticking their nose in and making it absolutely worse.  Track Record?  On immigration reform it's lousy.

We just can't trust the President or Congress to execute the immigration bill with any kind of confidence.  That's reason enough to squash it now.

A recent "Potomac Watch" column by Kimberley Strassel in the Wall Street Journal describes the success of Sen. Chuck Schumer in his quest to make Republicans look bad.  It is an interesting concept.  The Senate Republicans have always looked weak, even when they were in the majority.  Good Ol' Boy Lott and the wimpish Frist were the face of the Republican Senate. 

As the Dems castigated Bush with every daily news conference, the Senators occasionally got up and said a few words in defense, but with the aid of the mainstream media, those words were drowned out and the message never got out.

When it was time for the Senators to take a stand, they supported the privileges of office more that their party.  Earmarks, pork, lobbyist payoffs... all are essential parts of the role of being a Senator.  Proposing, passing and making sure rational, coherent conservative legislation was being consistently passed, were not actions of particular interest.  Lott was the worst.  When challenged about pork, he was obstinately in favor of privilege.

Now as the Dems are in the majority, the Republicans only sit back and take it and take it some more.  They are drawn into the web of masochism, abuse at the hands of Senate Dems.  It's like they were battered wives.and keep supporting the outrageous behavior of their abuser.  Stockholm Syndrome might work too.  Identifying with their captors.  How else to explain  Senator John Kyl throwing in with the Shamnesty crowd.  Come to think of it, President Bush, himself, isn't unaffected.

Conservative Republicans have tried to elect representatives and presidents that can advance the cause.  Instead we get to Big Government Bushes who have, in the main, damaged our party.  We have also gotten a Congress, both houses, that look to privilege and re-election for their sustenance and are in denial that there are large swaths of the country that look upon them as the lowest of the low.

Republicans should have created a HUGE stink about Representative Murtha's antics on the House floor when he bullied Rep. Mike Rogers and told Rogers unless Murtha's back was scratched, Rogers wouldn't get any earmarks at all... period.  This is intimidation and extortion of votes and supports, brazenly displayed.  It was a disgraceful demonstration by the arrogant House Dems.  Yet the Dem support of Murtha was virtually total when the Republicans tried to censure his disgraceful act...  Murtha gloated. 

All the Republicans can do is cower and cuddle up to their "man" the Dems and support them.  They lack the will and fortitude to call abuse, abuse.  The Republican National Committee needs to put some backbone in their charges, Congress.  Yet all I get from the RNC is a request for financial support of a group of yo-yos who want to destroy America through limitless immigration.

Two big developments this week significantly weakened America.  Development #1 was the highly touted bi-partisan immigration bill and #2 was the resignation of Paul Wolfowitz from the World Bank.  Let me first say that President Bush has been stalwart in the War in Iraq.  That is not an area where he has been weak.  No, these are political developments that show how irresolute Bush is on a number of fronts as shown be the two following events.

#1.  The bipartisan immigration bill is a travesty.  It has shown how sloppy the governance of the country can be when a number of people want to railroad a bill through.  Senator John Kyl of Arizona has, surprisingly, is a supporter of the bill, yet when all of the big guns came out yesterday to trumpet their triumph, he neglected to show up saying that HE HADN"T READ ALL OF THE MEASURES OF THE BILL AND COULDN'T COMMENT.

The expectation is for the Senate to vote on the bill without having the entire bill available to read at the time of the vote.  This is outrageous behavior.  Yet the President wants this bill so badly, he is out there smiling and feeling victorious. 

The bill itself?  It is surrender to the illegal aliens in this country.  Many of the supporters of the bill claim that there are teeth in the enforcement provisions and that, with good intentions of some and the cynical bad intentions of others, tough enforcement will be meted out before amnesty.  They are calling it more like parole than amnesty, but to the common guy on the street, it's amnesty.  People who have broken the law to come here, will remain and have their presence legitimized.

Our border and immigration enforcement is not run efficiently as it is.  A number of the Fort Dix would-be murderers were here illegally... expired visas.  They held jobs, ran businesses, were stopped by law enforcement and nothing was done.  Just times that by a few hundred thousand and you have porous borders and lax (in the cases of sanctuary cities, intentionally lax) enforcement.  High level bureaucrats in multiple agencies seem to have the view that illegal immigration is OK, so enforcement can be lax.  From the top down, the countries security is compromised by the Bush administration.

#2  Paul Wolfowitz has succumbed to a palace revolt by international parasites who comprise the bureaucracy at the World Bank.  Trumped up charges, publicity leaks, false testimony, incredible amounts of ill will have been used to oust him.  Here a U.S. citizen who has served his country well and by all accounts managed the World Bank in such a way to increase the integrity of a corrupt, self-serving insititution is attacked and all Bush can do is put up a weak defense.  Wolfowitz gets virtually no public help from the Secretary of State nor the Secretary of Treasury in his battle.  In some respects the attack on Wolfowitz is an attack on America's pre-eminent role in the world.  ... and what does the Bush administration do?    Blink.   That's what they do.

The U.S. should get mad and impose conditions on the institution that uses taxpayer funds.  The U.S. puts in 1/6 of all money funded by the bank... the largest contributor of all.  Yet, the World Bank expects a blank check.  As it has been pointed out in a number of articles (The Wall Street Journal has been particularly good on this issue), the bank bureaucracy sees its mission as shoveling money out the door, not enabling the world's disadvantaged.  Wolfowitz was dedicated to the later.  A clash of cultures.  Yet we did not fight hard enough for him.


President Bush and his administration need to keep their eye on the ball in the waning months of his term.  It does the country no good to fight for freedoms and integrity in Iraq, when you are weakening the very fabric of the country at home.

If the Global War on Terror were just putting up with demonstrations of angry zealots, there would be some question as to there being a war at all.  If the Global War on Terror was waged in the same fashion as the perennial anti-West demonstrators at G-8 summits and other international events, there would be some question as to there being a war at all.  The big difference is that War is more than just an angry face... more than seething hatred and emotions boiling at the surface.   It is the perpetration of violence.

The Mainstream media and other leftists seem to think that most of the anger in radical Islam that shows itself as shouting faces full of hate towards the west can defused by hand holding and singing Kumbaya, James-Baker-style (or, if you will, State Department-style).   This works when dealing with demonstrators alone.  It doesn't work when a vast network of Islamofascists are tirelessly working to utterly destroy Western civilization and replace it with world-wide Islamic domination under sharia law.

Every morning the paper talks about Coalition soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians killed in Iraq.  Yet, we do not get the statistics for the enemy killed.  We only get the sensationalist, yet short, articles on some big Taliban or Al Qaeda leader being killed or captured, such as happened this morning when the No. 2 Taliban leader was killed in Afghanistan this weekend.  We have no idea if we are making progress in the Iraq War.

Make no mistake, angry faces are hostile.  Barking dogs do bite.  War kills.  War is all about killing, domination, territory, both mental and physical.  However, like a sports contest, the intensity by which the game is played can make up for a relative lack of skill.  The angry face increases intensity.  When the feckless Democrat policy is defeatism, it can only whip up the enemy.  Victory in a war is when the other side is bloodied in a big way.  Losing a battle, 9/11, Madrid's train bombings.  When the Democrats decide that we need to run away from Iraq, such positive reinforcement for radical Islam will again motivate more angry faces.

Emotional intensity is contagious.  Every victory is a motivator.  Every defeat is a motivator.  Every act is a motivator.  The only way to combat an enemy that is so bound up in hatred and anger is to show strength, dominate and deomoralize them.   That has worked in the past to suppress radical Islam.  

Radical Islam can only be suppressed, not eradicated.  We cannot as a nation or civilization destroy a world religion, but we can and must suppress the angry faces.  We cannot allow violence to follow the exhibition of angry faces.  We must relentlessly pursue those whose goal is the active eradication, though violence and intimidation, of all other world religions and our Western civilization.  War is more than an angry face, it takes more than talk and good intentions to wage a war and win a victory.

Maybe it has become time to get our entire country in a little more of a black and white focus when looking at the problems in the Middle East.  The first task is to define what is an enemy of the United States?  If one cannot define one's enemies, how can you hope to have an adequate defense?

Iran has declared "Death to America!".  President Ahmedinejad has done so in public in front of thousands of chanting Iranian citizens.  Anyone who does not define Iran as our enemy is feckless.  Syria is training and supporting the infiltration of foreign Al Qaeda members into Iraq for the express purpose of killing American soldiers and Iraqi citizens.  Iran imports (at no charge, probably) the effective penetrating IEDs for the express purpose of killing American soldiers.  Roadside bombs are used exclusively against military and police authorities.

Iran and Syria are actively supporting those who are killing Americans.  Can it be more plain that they are our enemy?  Yet what do we do?  We engage.  By engaging that means we talk endlessly and do nothing.  That only emboldens our enemy.  It especially emboldens enemies from an aggressively masculine culture.  They see only engaging in discussions as a weakness. 

North Korea continually dupes us into making agreements and comittments with them only for them to ignore their side of the agreements.  Yet does this make them our enemy?  Here the answer is not precise.  We are being conned by North Korea.  They are not as much our enemy as they are engaged in criminal activity.   Is a common criminal our enemy?  No.  We can get into a discussion of good vs. evil.  From a moral sense, an enemy can be honorable and not the embodiment of evil.  Yet from that same moral sense, a criminal can be the embodiment of evil, yet you do not have to treat them as your enemy.

Defense is still required, but not necessarily of the same type.  Can your enemy be evil?  Absolutely.  I am convinced that those who rule Iran are evil men doing evil things.   I am convinced that Kim Jong Il is an evil man.  I am not convinced that Nroth Korea is, at this time, our enemy. 

An example of an enemy not being evil would be Vichy France.  Those pressed into the service of greater, and perhaps evil states, such as the Soviet Union, have been our enemies, but not necessarily evil. 

Al Qaeda is both evil and our enemy.  They are evil in that their goal is to enslave the world.  They condone evil acts.   They have religious approval before they slice tongues off.  They feel justified in suppressing freedom of thought and action.  The fundamentalist view of Islam is antithetical to Western thought and sensibilities and morals.

Does this mean that all muslims are our enemies?  No.  But it does mean that millions are. We need to understand that.  The only way to defuse our enemies is to show them strength.  As long as fundamentalist Islam continues to push people into aggressions against Western society, the threat continues.  Supression does work both ways.  In the past, we have been able to succesfully suppress the effects of fundamentalist Islam.  "Peaceful coexistence" with fundamentalist Islam requires us to be able to suppress.  Take away the suppression and the jihadist movement will again rise to become a threat.  It has happened that way through the centuries that Islam has been with us.

Iran is pushing all of the hot buttons.  The longer we take no actions to defuse Iran's intentions, the greater the threat to us and the more virulent their enemy status.  The moderate elements Islam are the ones being suppressed in Iran, today.  Without our supporting their cause in the most active fashion, we are capitulating.  We are acting weak.  We are the feminine side to their misogyny.  They will continue to abuse us until we push back in an active fashion and show them, again, our masculine side.  What keeps us from doing it now is that we are still wringing our hands over who is an enemy and what do we do with one. 

The Democrats are definitely acting in a feminine fashion.  Their inability to show the world the power of the U.S. and their continued support of our enemies through the continual insistence of engagement without action, are acts that will embolden Iran.  Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are useful idiots, as anti-suppresants in the halls of our government.  They do not recognize the enemy.  They do not understand the realities of action.  Iran does and will remain our enemy until we show them otherwise.

We see a brief headline where 100 something Iraqis were blown to bits by Al Qaeda.  Al Qaeda continues to win in Iraq according to the media.

There are some who are anxiously awaiting the next report of U.S. soldier fatalities in Iraq so we can notch another few deaths that are G.W. Bush's fault.  Harry Reid proclaims the surge a failure.

The sub prime lending market has taken a nosedive with some sub prime lenders going bankrupt.  So this means the economy is awful according to John Edwards.

CEO pay is going up.  Shareholders need to do something about it,according to various liberal watchdog groups and grandstanding members of Congress.

What is wrong with the above?

We are keeping score on the wrong things. 

I ask you, what games or competitions have you been to where the score is tracked into how poor an opponent is doing?  In chess, do we count how many men the loser has or the men and type of men the winner has taken?  In tennis, do we exclusively track our own score and neglect to keep track of our opponent's?  In golf, do we just count our putts, or do we count all of our strokes?

Yet we are in a deadly competition with Al Qaeda.  When was the last tally you heard on how many Shiite militia, Sunni insurgents or Al Qaeda we have killed?  I can't find the numbers.  We don't keep them.  Why not?  There are a number of reasons, none of them helping us win the war.  The answer is found in the political correctness that drives aspects of the Iraq war.  It isn't nice to publish the numbers we kill.  It may hurt the feelings of our Iraqi allies. 

How feckless.  In a culture that is testosterone-based, letting them know how many we have killed makes us look like a much more  valid ally.  As it is we appear to them as girlie-men.  In the feminine sphere, hurt feelings are as or more important as physical hurts.  We have let our culture become so effeminate that we are afraid to punch our own shadow, for fear of hurting its self esteem.

War is a nasty business.  We have to fight it with a certain nastiness, yet western culture has so delegitimized aggressive behavior that it is hard to find allies to participate with us in real fighting.  Look at how the British soldiers folded when captured.  Look at how the British were so passive in obtaining their soldiers back from the crazies in Tehran.  The west looked weak, the Iranians looked strong.  Ahmedinezad may be diminutive, but he knows how to keep score, and by his count, he is doing pretty well.

Al Qaeda looks at our media and sees the ingrained defeatism of the Democrat party and smile and know they are scoring points.  They also know that they can win with people like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and all of the Democrat presidential nominees on their side keeping score for them.

Our Republican friends aren't immune from the PC disease that infects government at all levels.  Bush for all of his tough talk has let a defeatist State Department keep score in North Korea.  Guess what, we are keeping score on our defeats and Kim Il Sung's points.  He has scored lots of them with our help.

When do we keep score and act like we want to win.  When are we gong to recognize that we need to win... not just co-exist.  Our enemies are keeping score.  They know who is ahead and who isn't.  They know that we always can come back and snatch victory from defeat... although our current way of keeping score is a strategy to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

On the home front, we are confronted by John Edward's two Americas,  those who are doing well and those who are doing really well.  Yet the way he keeps score, there is no way those who are employed and making as much money as they ever have can feel good about it.  The way he wants them to keep score is to look at people like himself and tell themselves to feel bad about it, then vote for him.

The Dems keep calling the economy bad.  They were recently decrying the state of the sub prime mortgage lenders as the housing inflation that allowed folks to make money on 100% loans ended.  There are those who couldn't make the payments and loans defaulted.  Housing starts fell.  The sky is falling.

Yet this week the Dow Jones Industrial Average passed 12,900 for the first time.  The performance of stocks is not an outlying factor.  Unemployment remains low.  The economy has shrugged off a number of horrific events and continues to move along.  The recession Bush inherited, 9/11, Katrina, the Iraq War, the end of the housing bubble, $70+ a barrel oil prices have all been taken in stride by the economy. 

Why are those points not tallied up and disseminated by the media?  Well, we can't have Republican success.  We can't point to an incredibly strong economy when it was sustained in part via tax cuts.  We can only publicize negative points.   CEO salaries?  How horrible are they?  Someone is making a ton of money from the economy.  Yet why don't we hear about the correspondent rise in shareholder values with those rising salaries.  Those CEOs are making a lot of money because they are hired to increase shareholder value.   Perhaps a CEO with a high salary might actually be a good thing for a company?  Are we likely to think more of a professional baseball player making 500,000 per year or one who is making 5,000,000 per year?  No, we will think the lower paid baseball player is of lower relative worth.  Then why are we hung up because one CEO is making more than another?

It's all in the scorekeeping.  Many of our institutions revel in failure and abhor victory.  The media, the leftists, the Democrats, those wimps on the right (with apologies to Bernard Goldberg's new book), want to promote the things that will keep us needing government and institutions (them) to solve our problems.  They don't want us winning and feeling good about our accomplishments.   Only through failure can we win the respect of our allies and our enemies.  Can you believe that?  Yet it is how they view life...  the only way they can justify that viewpoint is keeping score on the wrong things.

What happens when the media grabs hold of a subject they are interested in?  They pound it to death.  The great example of this is the brouhaha over Don Imus' ridiculous quote. 

What if the media reported the statement, the apology and then let it drop?  Imus would have taken a bit of a ratings hit.  There wouldn't be the great hand-wringing on the part of white-guilt-driven whites and there wouldn't be the demogogic reaction by Sharpton and Jackson.  People like this do not deserve a "Reverend" appelation.  Imus deserves some public excoriation, but then everybody can move on.

It has been pointed out in many places that Imus is merely emulating the hip-hop/rap terminology present in white culture and embedded in black culture.  It has been pointed out by many, that the issue should be expanded to decry the common terminology degrading the American culture.  I can't remember where I heard it, but this segment of black culture is actually "prison" culture.  Violent.  Anti-intellectual.  Mysogynist.  Anti-authority.  Profane.  Amoral. 

Our media has glorified single parenthood.  It has glorified, or at least made respectful, immoral/amoral behavior.  It walks away from value judgements of morality.  However, it does not walk away from political correctness, which is not morality. 

The media gives Sharpton and Jackson massive amounts of attention to be the spokesman of what is acceptable from a racial standpoint.  This is not a moral stand, but a politcal one.  White-guilt.

Then you have the Duke Lacrosse players.  The media was all for supporting the black accuser.  However, the media gave lots of people a platform for their condemnation of white America, lacrosse players, northeast elitists, white athletes, etc., etc.  Yet now that they have been declared INNOCENT, where are the media apologies?  Is the media going to solicit apologies from the Duke University president firing the coach and cancelling the season?  Where is the condemnation by the media of Duke not presuming innocence, but presuming guilt.  Was it because the athletes were white and not black?  Would black athletes have gotten the national press, the public hand-wringing?  No. 

The media acts without morality.  It operates because it can.  Just like the fuedal lord in medieval times, who could do whatever he wanted, without regard to morals or rule of law, the media acts in the same manner.  Just as the fuedal lord had no conscience, no guilt when doing wrong, no sense of the rights of others, the media can do whatever they want. 

The media acts as arbiter of life... without a moral connection.  They exacerbate to get ratings/exposure/money.  They distort to get ratings/exposure/money.  If they are wrong?  It gets swept under the carpet.  Will the Duke lacrosse players get much press as they will probably pursue legal recompense?  Look for dwindling coverage while the Don Imus comments go on and on and on and on.

Why is some deviancy OK and other deviancy not OK?  What does the definition of deviancy have on our society?

Why is it OK to murder a nearly-full-term baby, but not OK to take an unwanted baby after birth and leave it on a mountain top to die?  The same result occurs.

Why is it OK to "celebrate" Gay/Lesbian/Transgender/and whatever else sexual rights, yet trample on the rights of people who don't agree with sexual deviancy to use such terms as "faggot" while the GLT???? crowd can call everyone they disagree with "homophobes"?

Why must we see loud-mouthed women on TV defend terrorists and our efforts to interrogate and detain them, yet have to put up with reading about related terrorists attack innocent civilians with chlorine gas? 

Why can college students burn the Stars and Stripes, yet college administrations can prosecute students who trample on Hamas and Palestinian flags for hate crimes?

Why can we be browbeaten into accepting the "fact" that global warming will wreck the planet by people who fly around in private jets and proclaim that the purchase of "green" credits obviate them of any responsible actions?

The answer is that with a participating liberal left media, hypocrisy can be swept under the table.  With a participating liberal left media, there is only a narrow range of "acceptable" opinion and actions.  For all of the crowing of the left, there is little in the way of civility, open-mindedness, perspective and grace.

In the pursuit of "civility", Harry Reid can spout off any kind of invective about the Bush administration, even thought his words are absolutely wrong and get away with it.  He can call any program or action by the Administration as failed, the facts can easily prove him wrong, and the press gives him a pass.

Al Gore can produce a global warming documentary, full of lies, misstatements, faulty projections based on discredited data both mathematically and factually and the press gives him a pass.

Joe Wilson can lie about the facts of his trips to Africa, they can be proven to be false in government commissions and other obtainable sources, yet the Dems can still claim that Karl Rove is the devil for questioning Wilson's veracity.

Bush lied in his 2003 State of the Union address.  It's a fact, it's actual, everything is satisfactual... except for the little fact that Bush didn't lie.  The Dem's have never been intellectually open enough to realize it.  The press supports the continuation of the misstatements without any journalistic investigation and challenge.

What irony that truth and perspective can be so trampled upon in our society.  Perhaps the 60's crowd need to die off before we get real again.  (And this coming from a baby boomer).