Shame the Obstructionists

Champions are determined this way: you can win by one point, it's still a win. The champions are the ones who can capitalize on a one point win.

The Republican leadership has been far too sensitive to their counterparts. Forget calling it the "nuclear option." I much prefer "doomsday for the Democrats."

Thirty year old battles like abortion rights, civil rights, trumped up voting irregularities are smoke screens sent up by a lazy and irresponsible press. They are emotional subterfuge for soap opera addicted pols, and the people who dole it out, like Kennedy, Byrd, Boxer, Reed should just go away.

Frist should engineer a major humiliation for his opponents, and if he can't figure it out, I hear DeLay has some experience in just this kind of thing. Maybe they should chat.

Kerry's Attack on Christians

Kerry succeeds in deminishing his ignorance quotient below that of Boxer when he links the religious community with the Darfur situation. He does not remember or realize that it was the evangelicals who first drew attention to the murders, as they did to the slave children of mid Africa, the slaughter in Rwanda, the Liberian and Ivory Coast oppression.

I have not taken the time to provide documentary support in the form of old news releases and URLs but if my memory serves me well, somewhere in the dark crevices, I seem to recall that it was a Jesuit who first called attention to Rwanda. Could be wrong, but you get the idea, and your resources for morgue-crawling are far better than mine

Let it be understood by one and all: the UN did not call the public ear because its legendary cowardice would not bear the embarrassment of public scrutiny, it was the Christians who brought out stories and made a lazy press notice, however superficially. The United States Congress took virtually no action, the extant administration sat on its hands because they felt an emasculated President lacked the moral authority to move with potency.

All this talk of the religious right's hijacking of the government is nonsense. Since Day One, minus several years, it has been the religious of this country who have called for fairness and mercy. It was the Baptists who insisted on payment to the natives for land. It was the Methodists who breathed life into universities. It was the religious Christians who called for an end to slavery.

The religious fell away from government in the period following Richard Nixon, and the religious have paid the price in small tariffs every day. Now the price has been deemed too steep, and they take a pro-active position.

Is this a bad thing? Maybe yes, maybe no, but the crux of the matter boils down to its origin. The religious of this country are once again ready to shoulder the burden of being the conscience of a magnificent and diverse people, and, contrary to gigantic opinion, it is the right thing to do.

Can the task be resumed? Surely. Remember, it started with one guy.

Bush Perserveres

Perserverance in the war in Iraq signals not only the resolve of the President, it is an affirmation of the de-centralization of power from the Beltway. The election of this Chief Executive was a seizure of moral authority embodied in a man closer to his constituents, the people who work in the outlands where truth and steadiness are valued.

High minds, the theoretical geniuses who think they own politics, bear responsibility for the Somalian debacle and other political disasters like the marooning of the Shi'ites in the early nineties, the desertion of the Shah, the non-response to the first attack on WTC.

Typical of the overthinkers who still populate positions of sway at State and at Langley, the elite swapped out human indignation for transactional-lite management and containment. And Americans stood for it because the status quo was comfortable and non-invasive.

The Internet and proliferation of news sources forever changed that attitude when war came to our shores again, and again we were annealed and tempered into into the tough stock of an awakened people who will fight.

The President's staying power rests in the factories and fields of the country. If he is wise he will listen to that constituency.

Mr. Bush became the President of the People in a classroom on 9/11. His oath of office was sworn at WTC a few days later. He best not forget it.

He knows who we are, and we know who he is.

His detractors best not forget that, either.

Intelligence? Really.

Get Down and Dirty

All this high-minded discussion of the intelligence failures and future deficits is really fun to read, and the Beltway midriff dithering sounds "oh, so important," but it obscures the real questions, ergo real answers about what to do.

Does anyone remember the treasure trove of information dredged up from beneath the fallen Iron Curtain? Specifically, does anyone remember that the Soviets were much further along in atomic weapons, space technology, espionage capability than we ever had a clue?

It's terrific that middle management hacks and ideologue caseworkers are leaving, but are other ideologues replacing them?

What is needed, besides a wise oracle to oversee and collate the information into something usable, is a team of dirty, rotten scoundrels who will figure out what the enemy will odds-on do, and get the horsepower to listen.

Contrary to congressional and bureaucratic opinion, espionage and intelligence are not Girl Scout merit badges.