Normally, and quite naturally, a bill must be introduced by a  member of the House or Senate for it to be taken under consideration by that chamber; the process must begin in one or the other chamber, by an action taken by a member of that chamber.  The bill can then go through committee, go to the chamber floor, be debated, amended, voted on, and, if passed, then sent to the other chamber, where it can again be debated, amended, voted on, and if passed, then reconciled with the other chamber’s version, voted again by both chambers, and if they then both agree on the same version,  then sent to the President for his/her signature or veto.  But the bill must begin its life in one or the other of the two constitutionally mandated chambers.

But with this supercommittee,  a bill will not be introduced into either the House chamber or the Senate chamber, but will entirely be a construct of the supercommittee.  Both chambers will then be forced to vote on the legislation determined by the supercommittee.  We will have legislation being voted on by both chambers, of which neither chamber is the author or orginator.  And while neither chamber is the author of the bill, both chambers will have no choice but to vote on the bill, as is, with no amendments allowed.  This supercommittee is not therefore providing the chambers a recommendation, it is handing out a decree: accept this bill, or enact pre-determined “triggers.”  

What the debt limit extension bill created then was not a “supercommittee,” but a new “superchamber” of the Legislative branch.  It has powers conferred on it that neither the House or Senate has.  It can proscribe, prescribe, and constrain the options of the constitutionally mandated chambers; it can decree which of two legislative options the Legislative Branch is allowed to produce.   Even in the act of doing nothing it can force the other two chambers to take a prescibed course of action. 

 In additon, the constitution mandates that all revenue bills must originate in the House.  This committee, however, also has the power to “recommend” revenue increases.   The House and Senate will then both be forced to vote on these revenue increases irrespective of what the other chamber has done.  This is not how the constitution prescibes the process:  the House is supposed to vote on and pass a bill relating to revenue increases, and only then can the Senate take up, vote on and amend such a bill.  There is not a provision for another “superchamber” to force the introduction of revenue bills  into the other two chambers simultaneously.

This supercommittee seems not only unconstitutional in spirit, but unconstitutional in fact.  I’m surprised this hasn’t raised more alarms among conservatives.  House Republicans pledged to site the constitutional authority for all legislation when they took power in January; I wonder what section of the Constitution was sited in the Boehner bill in order to justify the creation of this new extra-constitutional entity?

It is also high time to start openly and forcefully challenging these people when they peddle such blatant lies.  Jaun should have been called out and thoroughly denounced the moment his bogus allegations left his lips.  Savage libel masquerarding as high minded principles must be directly and forcefully denounced whenever it is encountered.   That, and not collegiality, should be the concern of the talking heads on the right.

- Propose a massive program for zero-gee experimentation on viable human embryos.  Make it involve the destruction of hundreds or better thousands of human embryos every year in a new, massive space laboratory.  Suggest a follow-on program for experiments to be performed in the 1/6 gravity of the moon.  Make a list of all diseases known to man and claim this research could cure all of them.   If this won’t make Barak’s eyes light up, I don’t know what could.

- Have Joe Biden give a major address on the Obama administration’s new space policy.  He’ll probably make his typical hash of it, and accidentally announce that Constellation has been re-instated, its development has been accelerated, and commit the Administration to the goal of putting a human on Mars by 2010 before they’re able to yank him off the stage.

-  I’m not sure how to do this yet, but convince Barak that it is vitally in America’s best interests to have no manned space program, and that America’s stature in the world will be greatly reduced to have one.   He’ll throw resources into NASA like it’s a teacher’s union in Vermont.

- Make all NASA employees SEUI members.

- Have NASA propose a new initiative that involves spelling “Barak Obama” on the surface of the moon in lettering so large it can be seen from the earth.

- Change the name of the Constellation program to the “Barak Obama” program.

- Change the name of the Internation Space Station to the “Barak Obama” Space Station.

- Retroactively change the name of project Apollo to project “Barak Obama.”

- Change the name of “outer space” from “outer space” to “Barak Obama.”

- Start a rumor that all opponents of manned space exploration are rabidly racist.  Arrange a meeting of all manned space exploration opponents, and have Democratic congressmen walk right through the meeting.  Make claims that hateful racial epitaphs were thrown at them as they walked through the crowd.  Bring Heath Shuler along so he can claim that it was one of the ugliest displays he’s ever seen in American public life.

- Have all astronauts promise that from now on they will bow to the waist to foreign astronauts whenever they board the ISS.

- Put Bart Supak in charge of Congressional opponents to the Constellation program.  Five minutes before the final vote to cancel the program, offer him $45 in counterfeit Monopoly playmoney and a forged “get out of jail free” card if he switches his support to in favor of the Constellation program.  He’ll fold like a house of cards and the program will be saved.

Those are just a few ideas.  Perhaps there are better ones.

“Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from personal attacks at a town hall in Oklahoma:

“While discussing his policy disagreements with Pelosi, Coburn said “she’s a nice lady,” which brought hisses and hoots from the crowd.

“Said Coburn: ‘Come on now. She is nice — how many of you all have met her? She’s a nice person. Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn’t mean they’re not a good person… So don’t catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don’t know what they don’t know.’

“Coburn also has an unlikely friendship with President Obama.”

If this is how one of our Republican leaders in the Senate views Nancy Pelosi, then I believe we are in deep trouble, whether or not Republicans regain the majority in an election cycle or two.  After the crooked dealings that Nancy, Harry and Barak engaged in to enact this health care abomination, Nancy’s labeling of Obamacare opponents as “un-American,” Nancy’s lying about briefings she received on CIA interrogation tactics — not to mention Nancy’s support, as a Catholic grandmother, of partial-birth abortion and taxpayer-funded abortions — I would have expected Senator Coburn would see Nancy in a slightly less benign aspect than as a “nice lady.”   That isn’t exactly the way nice ladies are supposed to act.

Further, the above link quotes Coburn as saying the following about Barak Obama:

“I try to write him about every week or two. Write him a note, encourage him. No one has a tougher job than he does… We came into the Senate together, and I just have a lot of admiration for him. I’m 180 degrees from him on policy on most issues. But I think he’s a wonderful man.”

Senator Coburn appears to be of the “collegiality” class of Republicans, and nothing in the last year and a half has phased him.  No matter how terrifying your opponents’ goals are, no matter what deceptions they engage in, no matter what lies and slanders they utter along the way, they are still wonderful men and nice ladies whom you deeply admire, and let’s not let a trivial little dispute over our American way of life get in the way of all that necessary after-hours back-slapping.

I am all for Republicans practicing Christian charity towards Democrats.  However, after all that’s happened, and in light of the dire state the country is in, I do expect Republicans to view Democrats realistically, both in terms of their policies and their character.  This is not a game of cricket (and even at that, a game of cricket where your opponent repeatedly kicked you in the kneecaps to win), where it doesn’t matter who wins or loses as long as we can share a glass of port together in the clubhouse afterward.  This is the long, twilight struggle for the heart and sole of our country, and we are losing, and losing badly, to dishonorable people with dishonorable intentions.  This is not a disagreement over Diet Coke versus Diet Pepsi, this is a disagreement over right and wrong, liberty versus tyranny, justice versus injustice, honor versus dishonor.  And our Republican leaders can’t even muster a righteous indignation over what’s happening, but instead think that we’re just dealing with a nice lady and a wonderful man.

It is also disturbing that this behavior by Senator Coburn in praised by a writer for the premier conservative websites in America.  Conservative pundits should be expecting Republican leaders to be resisting Democrats with more spirited rhetorical weapons than over-the-top flattery.

I would be amazed if leaders showing the “class” of Senator Coburn will ever muster the willpower to overturn Obamacare.  More probable will be a polite, perfunctory attempt to repeal, followed by endless savage attacks from fine ladies and wonderful men, a totally dumbfounded, deer-in-the-headlights response from Republican politicians who can’t believe their friends would turn on them in this way, quickly to be followed by a hasty Republican retreat, and another round of praise by Republicans for their fine Democratic brethren.

That being said, I was struck with how readily one can take passages from Chapter 2 of Liberal Fascism and apply them to modern American liberalism.

Goldberg writes:

“What Hitler got from Italian Fascism – and, as indicated above – from the French and Russian revolutions, was the importance of having an idea that would arouse the masses. The particular content of the idea was entirely secondary. The ultimate utility of ideas is not their intrinsic truth but the extent to which they make a desired action possible – in Hitler’s case the destruction of your enemies, the attainment of glory, and the triumph of your race. This is important to keep in mind because Hitler’s ideological coherence left a great deal to be desired. His opportunism, pragmatism and megalomania often overpowered any desire on his part to formulate a fixed ideological approach.”

Consider, in light of the above passage, how Obama summarized his candidacy with catch-phrases like “Hope,” “Change” and “Yes We Can.” The intellectual content of these ideas is secondary – in fact nonexistent – and their utility is simply to get people mobilized to go and vote for him. Look at the use the left makes of global warming. The value of global warming is not in its inherent truth, but its utility in advancing the left’s socialist, industry-destroying objective. Or look at how the left will throw out different numbers for how many uninsured there are in America. The real number is irrelevant, as is why many people might voluntarily choose to go uninsured. The utility of the number is simply its usefulness in making socialized medicine a reality.

Ideological consistency on the part of the left also leaves much to be desired. Obama can trash America from one end of the world to another, and then in the next breath question the patriotism of those who laughed at his failed Olympics bid; or call the Afghanistan war the Good War for years and then once in power dither for months over how or even if to fight the war.

One of the “desired actions” which Obama is trying to bring about with his malleable philosophy also appears to be the destruction of his enemies (think Rush and Fox News, for example) and, it would seem to me, the attainment of personal glory, although in Obama’s case the glory is decidedly non-martial, but comes from gaining acclamation from the right kinds of elites: anti-American people and nations in the international community.

Goldberg also writes of German fascism: “It can be better understood as a maelstrom of prejudices, passions, biases, hopes, and attitudes that, when combined, most often resembled a religious crusade wearing the mask of a political ideology.” What better definition could one come up with for Amercan liberalism, and its current manifestation as the cult of Obama?

Goldberg writes of Hitler’s extensive use of marketing and advertising, and of his use of “oratory to massive, exquisitely staged rallies.” Think of Obama in Berlin and Denver, and Chicago the night of the election.

Goldberg also writes : “Professors, students and civil servants were all disproportionately supportive of the Nazi cause.” Much the same can be said of these groups and American liberalism. Academics, it would seem, have a universal, uncanny ability to be taken in by leftist agendas, no matter how odious of horrifying they may be.

There are, however, ways that modern Obamaism represents a distinct strain of fascism from that shown in Germany. While both were non-patriotic – most decidedly in the case of American liberalism – fascism in Germany was nationalist, in that it stressed, as Goldberg describes it, “’blood,’ ‘soil,’ ‘race,’ ‘Volk ,’ and so on.” These strains are played on a different chord in American liberalism. These nationalist appeals in Germany referred to a single race, and helped create a unifying national myth by stoking “Arian” racial pride and resentment. American liberalism, in contrast, while using “blood” and “race” in the guise of “multiculturalism,” is not trying to create a unifying national myth, but trying to divide and conquer – its goal is to attain power through the united resentment of many diverse groups. (“Soil” can have very little utility in such an approach, unless it is applied to Native Americans.) American liberalism, then, attains its goals through what might be called an anti-nationalist appeal.

Another difference is that while both fascisms make great use of boogymen, they are different boogeymen in each instance. In Germany, the boogymen were Jews and Poles and Gypsies, and the attitude toward these boogymen was horrifying and genocidal. While Jews – especially of the “Neocon” variety – are beginning to have their utility as boogymen for modern American liberalism, that role is mostly played by white males and – most especially – by Fundamentalist Christians. In the case of American fascism, the attitude toward these boogymen is far less diabolical, as they are primarily used as a tool to shame and ridicule and intimidate and de-legitimize any opposition to the liberal agenda.

There is one brief aside in Chapter 2 that I would like to dispute, because I think it demonstrates a tendency on the part of conservatives to create their own myths. Goldberg draws parallels between how Hitler took over the socialist movement in Germany and how the New Left took over the Democratic Party and the New Right (i.e., Buckleyite conservatives) "took over" the Republican Party. He writes, “In time the New Left and New Right took over their respective parties – the Democrats in 1972 and the Republicans in 1980 – and today they are simply the left and right.”

While I think this is indisputably true about the Democrats – Clinton, Gore, and Kerry were charter members of the “worst generation,” and Obama is clearly their second-generation philosophical descendent – I think that no such revolution occurred in the Republican Party. To assert that conservatives “took over” the Republican Party in 1980 is a conservative myth. There was a very nice conservative run under Reagan from 1981 to 1989, but conservatives most clearly did not take over the Republican Party. That possibility was precluded, ironically, at the 1980 Republican Convention, when Ronald Reagan, in an effort to deflate the disastrous trial balloon of Gerald Ford for Vice-President, made a choice that in the long term was equally disastrous: George H. W. Bush. Any hope for continuity in Reagan’s revolution died at that moment, as Bush was clearly not the man to carry Reagan’s legacy forward. Since Reagan, we have nominated Bush, Dole, Bush and McCain, and not a conservative in the lot. They all, to a greater or lesser degree, were uncomfortable with the conservative wing of their party, and at times seemed more concerned that the conservatives wouldn’t embarrass them in front of their Democratic friends than they were in carrying out any conservative agenda. There never was, and most clearly is not now, any triumph of conservatism. Hence the deplorable state our nation is in today.

These two passages made me wonder if the author of the essay, Elbert Hubbard, might have been a socialist.  A Wikepedia search on the man confirmed this.  He was a socialist, but one who migrated later in life to a defender of free enterprise.  My guess is that when Hubbard wrote this essay, he was in a state of transition from socialism to free enterprise.  The bloom has gone off the socialist rose, he faith was being tested, but he had not completely made the transition to capitalism and free enterprise.  It is interesting to me that a person in such a state would pen a conservative classic.

I have a problem with the following passage:  “The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, ‘Where is he at?’  By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land.”  If I were Rowan, and McKinley or anyone else had given me a letter to give to Garcia, I would most certainly have asked “Where is he at?” if I did not know.  To manfully charge off to do a duty without knowing all that you can about it beforehand isn’t initiative, it is rank foolishness and wasted energy.  It may be intrepid and manly to hack a machete path from one end of Cuba to the other until you stumble upon Garcia, but if someone could have pointed you in the right direction by your simply asking, “Where is Garcia at?” you were completely derelict in your duty for not doing so.  McKinley may not have known, but surely he should have known who could give Rowan that information.  If no one knew, then Rowan should have been told that his job was both to find Garcia, and then deliver the letter.  That changes the nature of his mission considerably, and a good leader would make that distinction clear.

I also have a problem with some of the questions that Hubbard thinks a hypothetical clerk shouldn’t ask before writing a memorandum on Correggio:

“Who was he?”  – Maybe that’s a poor question, if you’re coming up on a deadline, maybe not.  It sounds like a healthy curiosity, which maybe you’d like in an employee.  Maybe if you tell him, he’ll have a head start on where to start researching.  Wasted effort avoided, once again.

“Which encyclopedia?”  – Okay, that’s probably one a good clerk should figure out for himself.

“Where is the encyclopedia?”  – If the clerk was just hired last Tuesday, he may not know yet.  It seems like an eminently practical question if that is the case, and he may have just saved you and himself a lot of time in asking it.  Presumably, that’s a good thing.

“Was I hired for that?”  – Maybe he was or wasn’t.  If his duties are piling up and he doesn’t see an increase in compensation or appreciation, and Charlie (see below) is twiddling his thumbs in the corner for the same salary, that question may be an indication that all’s not well in the business and how it’s being run.  If he isn’t asking you that, but is only thinking that to himself, he may be looking for a better opportunity, and you may find yourself looking for a new clerk.

“Don’t you mean Bismarck?”  – Do you want an automaton or a thinking employee who takes an active interest in the business?  Maybe you did mean Bismark, and he may have just saved you a lot of wasted time and effort.

“What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?”  – There are many businesses with Charlies sitting in the corner doing nothing.  If the clerk is resenting that, he may up and quit.  Not to walk the streets penniless, but to a rival publishing house where he’s treated with respect, his questions aren’t summarily dismissed, and dead weight doesn’t sit around while he’s expected to carry all the work with no appreciation for the same salary as Charlie’s.  Or he may quit to start a new publishing house of his own.  In which case, you might have done better explaining more to him, and dismissing him less, and helping him rise in your own publishing house, making him a business asset, rather than a business rival.

“Is he dead?”  – I don’t know, but maybe he’s just saved you and himself a lot of time once again with a simple question that tells him which shelf in the library to start on.

“Is there any hurry?”  – Does the clerk have 20 other tasks pending?  It may be a very reasonable question that helps him prioritize what he has to do.

Hubbard’s list of inane questions makes me question whether I’d want to work for him.  He doesn’t seem to want employees with a healthy interest in the business.  Rather, his essay makes me suspect that he wants employees who go and do their task without any questions at all, even useful ones.  He doesn’t want curious employees.  Maybe if he spent more time bringing employees into the business, letting them know why they’re doing things, why those things are important, and making sure people who do twice Charlie’s workload get twice Charlie’s pay, he have a more enthusiastic, loyal, industrious staff, and his publishing house would be flourishing better.

It’s interesting this essay became standard reading in the Russian and Japanese armies.  Neither army or nation was known for its initiative, or respect for the individual.

Like Mr. Derbyshire, I also have strong memories of the moon landing, even though I am a few years younger than he.  I have clear memories of sitting in my parent’s living room and watching the ghostlike image of Neal Armstrong stepping off the Eagle’s ladder onto the surface of the moon.  I was nine years old, had no interest in astronomy, and was several years away from reading my first science fiction novel, but even so, as I watched those snowy images from 250000 miles away, I, like Mr. Derbyshire, thought the world had changed forever. 

Yes, it was a naïve thought; nothing changed at all.  Nothing followed but five more landings, followed by a human-killing Space Shuttle, and a Space Station to which we parade an endless line of women and men to do nothing more ground-breaking or edifying than study how their own bodies react to being in space. (Almost a literal case of “navel gazing.”  Republican members of Congress might make ideal astronauts in the age of the Space Station).  No new thoughts have been stirred in the minds of men, no dramatic new fortunes have been made.  There has been no “wagon train to the stars,” which is probably, if I could have found the words, what my nine-year-old mind was expecting to follow in 1969.

Mr. Derbyshire thinks the fact that nothing followed was due to the nature of the endeavor; hence his description of it as “folly.”  But the fact that Apollo didn’t change the world may not have been because Apollo was pointless, but because by 1969, the world itself had so changed that Apollo could have no impact on it.  There was a vast sociological chasm separating the moment that President Kennedy announced the goal of putting a man on the moon in 1961, and the moment it actually happened.  Following, roughly, the Tet Offensive of 1968, a new America had been born.  The new America loathed itself, and looked upon technological progress as a threat rather than as a blessing.  The July 1969 moon landing may well have been the technological and sociological high-water mark of American culture, but it was an anachronism even as it happened.  The real America, by then, was much more clearly represented by the youth who booed the announcement of the moon landing at concurrent rock concert, and who a month later flocked to Woodstock to participate in an orgy of self-congratulation and self-indulgence.

A society that had not invested in self-loathing would have looked with unbelievable pride on the magnificent accomplishment of putting a man on the moon.  It would have followed it up with a moon base, and with a manned mission to Mars, and in the process produced new knowledge, new technology, new resources, and — quite probably — extraordinary new wealth that would have made Bill Gates look like a member of the middle class.  Instead, America turned away from all that.  The proposal of Vice President Agnew’s task force, calling for a far-reaching manned space program to follow Apollo, was summarily dismissed.  NASA was only able to keep a manned space program — of sorts — alive by a con known as the Space Shuttle.  The Space Station, when finally built, ended up doing science less noteworthy than that performed during the brief Skylab missions of the early 1970s.  Technology became evil, to the point where today we can’t drill for oil, mine for coal, build a new power plant or even build a new road for fear of the unspeakable evils that will follow.  The modern American left, on display in its nascent form at Woodstock, now totally dominates our culture and our government, and looks with loathing on science and technology, unless the “science” involves suppressing any question of the unassailability of Natural Selection, dissecting a living human embryo, or using the “truth” of global warming to dismantle our economy.

Perhaps, from a purist standpoint, having large government programs to send humans into space is not in keeping with conservative ideals on the role of limited government.  But then again, perhaps not.  Human history indicates that the government, even a limited government, has an important role to play in human exploration and discovery.  Some important endeavors require economic resources that only central governments can bring together.  Columbus, after all, went to a head of state to bankroll his effort, not a rich Venetian or Florentine merchant.  The transcontinental railroad was the brainchild of the first Republican president and was heavily subsidized by the government.  Lewis and Clark’s expedition was a military mission and the brainchild of one of the greatest champions of limited government in human history.  The fact that all those missions led to so much more, and Apollo to nothing, may have more to do with the nature of our times, than any “folly” in the moon landing.  The fault lay not our quest for the stars, but in ourselves. 

The question was raised (by Kayla) following Moe’s diary as to why President Bush let Nancy pretend she was totally in the dark about waterboarding when he apparently had the evidence to prove she had been briefed on it.  Moe replied that the Democrats would have committed sedition if Bush had challenged them on their lies.  I challenged this assertion, asking what greater sedition they had in store if President Bush had challenged them.  He said they might have defunded the war.  I then challenged this assertion, saying that if they had had the political cover they needed to defund the war, they would have done so; President Bush’s being obsequiously polite to them was not the only thing standing between them and defunding the war.  I also asserted that President Bush’s challenging them on their lies could have only weakened their political hand, and Bush was, in fact, by not standing up to them, making it easier for the Democrats to defund the war.  Moe’s exasperated response to me was that the Democrats would have indeed behaved just that abominably, how many different ways did he have to say it, and why don’t I complain about them for a change instead of President Bush.

Now, I was not at all expressing incredulity at the abominable behavior Democrats are capable of.  President Bush, not I, is the one who needs an education in that area.  I was saying that they weren’t threatening to defund the war just to force President Bush to be silent in the face of their lies.  I think that the assertion falls apart on its own premise.  And I want to state why I think that. 

Let us just assume that Moe is right, and that Nancy and Harry held the defunding club over President Bush’s head to keep him from telling the truth about them.  Why would they do this? 

The only reason they would have threatened President Bush with a “nuclear” option of defunding the war was if they thought that Bush’s revelation of their lies would have caused them severe political damage.  In other words, if Moe is right, they feared the revelation.  However, if they were rightfully afraid, and telling the truth about them could have damaged them that badly, how would they have then had the political capital to retaliate in kind by defunding the war?  Clearly, they wouldn’t have.  You don’t go with a nuclear  – and highly controversial — retaliation when you’re reeling from a public relations disaster.  It simply doesn’t make sense.

In truth, if a revelation of the Democrats’ lying would have damaged them that badly, and they feared it as much as Moe implied they did, then it was President Bush, not the Democrats, who was holding all the cards.  He was the one with the club in his hand; he was the one who could have told the Democrats to stop with this nonsense on “torture,” or he’d reveal just how much on board they had been on the so-called “torture” from the start.

Therefore, the basis premise of Moe’s defense of President Bush’s silence doesn’t make sense. 

But in truth, this particular defense is just one more in an endless series of attempts made by a lot of good people to reconstruct President Bush’s actions, and even reconstitute reality, so that somehow, someway, despite our lying eyes, President Bush actually was the terrific leader we all wish he had been.

So even if that’s so, how about Moe’s second point.  Why do I keep on complaining about President Bush and why don’t I complain about the Democrats for a change?

Actually, I do complain about the Democrats quite a bit.  But still, why do I still complain about President Bush?

Well, for one thing, despite the fact that a lot of very fine and intelligent people think very highly of President Bush’s leadership, I personally find a lot of Bush boosting to be a form of Reverse Bush Derangement Syndrome (RBDS), and it is hard for me to swallow.  It almost annoys me as much as liberals do when they deny left-wing media bias or when they deny the fact that Clinton was a corrupt politician.  No amount of facts can dissuade them.  And RBDS annoys me in the same way.  No matter how many incidents you can rack up of GWB caving to the Democrats — of his silence in the face of their lies, of his embarrassing desire to flatter them while they savagely attack him, of his greater willingness to defend them than to defend members of his own administration, of his greater willingness to attack his own supporters than to site simple facts to refute his critics — he was still just plain terrific.  And all of these incidents that point to a contrary conclusion can, with just enough application of intellectual elbow grease, be sqeezed and fit and construed to show how he was actually doing something terrific all along.

Second of all, RBDS keeps alive the possibility of a Part III of the most disastrous political dynasty in American history.  Bushes have given us Clinton and Obama — and Barak Obama, with only an eviscerated Republican party to oppose him, may well be a disaster the country never recovers from.  But yet, so many Republicans just can’t get enough of the Bushes.  Even after two Bushes have New Toned the Republican Party into irrelevancy, many people are still hoping for a Jeb Bush Presidency.   The more we build up a folklore about the leadership of GWB – a man who for large stretches of time didn’t lead at all, and in fact seemed to consider leadership a form of bad political manners toward the Democrats – the greater the chance that we’ll go down this disastrous path again.

Thirdly, RBDS helps to let President Bush off the hook for what he should be doing right now.  He shouldn’t be going out giving speeches on how much he supports Barak Obama, he should be going out on the stump to support the members of his administration whom Democrats are viciously attacking.  Why should that job fall only in the laps of  people with the last name of Cheney?  Why does President Bush seem so eager to use “the dignity of the office of the Presidency” as an excuse for not standing up to his Democratic foes?  All it takes for bad men to take over the world is for enough good men to remain silent.  And President Bush chose, and still chooses, to remain silent. 

1. Be stridently, breath-takingly, relentlessly pro-abortion. Be so stridently pro-abortion that you’d rather see premature babies die without medical care than see any weakening of the sacred “right to choose.” Be so stridently pro-abortion that you’re to the left of Hillary Clinton on the issue.

2. Be a practicing Roman Catholic who aligns himself politically with the person with Requisite #1.

3. Fund UN programs that provide “family planning” services in the third world; in other words, fund the aborting of third-world poverty-stricken babies.

4. Provide government funding for the destruction of human embryos for dubiously beneficial scientific research.

5. Sit in a “church” for 20 years where the pastor spews hateful, profane invective against America from the pulpit.

6. Choose as your “spiritual director” a man who spews hateful, profane invective against America from the pulpit.

7. Express your unqualified support for Roe-v-Wade.

8. Express your regret over once having voted to the to keep a brain-damaged woman from being slowly and painfully starved and dehydrated to death.

9. As you await your honorary “law” degree, prepare the government for engaging in a series of show-trials against your predecessor’s administration. To assist in that cause, engage in an Orwellian redefinition of the word “torture,” so that no definition of real torture will be possible any longer. Suggest that it is appropriate to use the law to prosecute those who gave legal opinions you might disagree with. Have the audacity, as a strident pro-abortionist, to question the moral “bearings” of those who advocated aggressive interrogation techniques against terrorists.

10. Be a practicing Roman Catholic who has consistently ignored the Catholic Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life.

11. Have a history of plagiarism.

12. Have trouble distinguishing your Rosary beads from an assault weapon.

13. Require that a Catholic university cover up its religious symbols before you will speak at it.

14. Equate having a baby with being “punished.”

15. Have the backing of the intellectual and social elites of the world. Then, no matter how intrinsicly antogonistic your deeds and words are to the values and creed of the Roman Catholic faith, the leaders of the Catholic university will overlook it all. After all, what’s more important, upholding the values and teachings of your faith, or getting a seat at the table with the “cool kids” of this world?

Don’t you understand what Barak Obama and the Democrats in Congress are trying to do?  Don’t you know they’re trying to roll over our nation and culture in a tsunami of “change,” and leave something unrecognizable in its wake?    Don’t you know you’re in a desperate struggle to preserve those things that make America a special and desirable place to live in?

Why are you only going through the formalities of opposition?  Why are you content with an occasional “no” vote, and maybe a formal letter of concern?  Why are you satisfied with doing the bare minimum to oppose these people?  Don’t you know, and don’t you care, that perfunctory, diminutive opposition is doomed to fail?  Don’t you understand that it is your duty to try as hard as you can to stop the Obama agenda? 

Why aren’t you pouring over the Senate and House rules of order to try to find ways to slow the Obama agenda down?  Why aren’t you trying to find a way to buy some time, to give the American people a chance to wake up?

And why don’t you see that it’s your duty to try to wake the American people up?  You are the ones with the platform that can be used to do that.  For some reason – very strange, given that you are politicians – this task is incredibly uncomfortable and distasteful for you.  But you must do so anyway.  You must make your voices heard, and heard consistently, to try to stop the Obama agenda.  This will require you to do more than having your office occasionally issue a formal policy statement.  You will have to speak out publicly in forums where your message can actually be heard. 

Why is there not a constant stream of Republicans on the floor of the House and Senate expressing outrage over President Obama’s words and actions?  Why are you not denouncing his decision to experiment on human embryos, a scientifically dubious decision that is an affront to the basic dignity of human life?  Why are you not expressing outrage over his trashing of his predecessors overseas, his attacking of the integrity and motives of this country that protected the free world for the better part of a century?  Why are you not denouncing his insulting characterizations of the honorable mission our brave men and women in Iraq are engaged in?  Why are you not screaming at the top of your lungs over the reckless and frightening cuts he’s making in our national defense?  Why are you not boiling over with righteous outrage when the Department of Homeland Security characterizes anyone who disagrees with the Obama agenda as a potential threat to the internal security of our nation?  Why are you not expressing any indignation when President Obama, a man who supported legalized infanticide, puts on airs of moral superiority, and trashes G. W. Bush, by calling mildly aggressive — and highly effective — interrogation techniques a “dark” chapter in our nation’s past?  Why are you not expressing alarm that he has redefined the meaning of  “torture” so that real torture now has no meaningful definition?   Why aren’t you constantly, relentlessly, warning the American people of the debt that’s hanging over the heads of future generations?  Why are you not warning them of the threat that our free-market economy is facing?  Why are you not alerting them to the irreversible loss of personal liberty that socialized medicine portends, and that is perilously close to becoming a reality?

If you used your platform as elected representatives to denounce, loudly and consistently, the actions of the Obama Administration, some of it would start to sink through into the consciousness of the American people.  If you did not let up, even the news media could not totally black it out.  One impassioned speech by one British Tory Party member recently went viral around the world.  Don’t you think that a consistently articulated message from you could produce similar, quite possibly multiple, rhetorical reverberations?

And at any rate, strange and bizarre as it will seem to most of you to hear, the media’s position is not unassailable.  You can challenge it.  It is high time — and maybe even the last possible time – for a direct challenge to be made to their pretensions of objectivity. When they interview you, you are allowed to directly challenge them over what they are asking and what they are reporting.  You must do so.  It is the only way most people will ever learn that they are being mislead, and told selective truths to.  Why are you so afraid to do so?  Are you afraid they’ll stop being so nice to you, and instead you’ll be viciously attacked, ridiculed, misrepresented, ignored?  How could things be any worse if you actually tried to challenge them, in a manner where the American people can see and hear you challenge them?

Why are you not trying harder?  Why do these things that mean so much to your constituents seemingly mean so little to you?  Why did you go into politics, if your goal was only to passively submit to the opposition?  Why do you prefer trying to get along with them, rather than trying as hard as you can to defeat them?  Why do you prefer preserving a mythical collegiality with your opponents, rather than preserving the basic institutions that have made America great?   Are you so overwhelmed by the “cool kids” status of your opponents that you can’t bring yourselves to vigorously challenge them?  Are you afraid they’ll be dissing you when they pass notes to each other on the House floor?  Are you afraid you won’t be allowed to sit at the Cool Kids table in the Capitol cafeteria?  Are you so totally dazzled by the “damn-I’m-groovy” gait of President Obama  when he sachets up to a podium, or bounds down the steps of Air-Force One — in anticipation, no doubt, of yet another “trash America” moment — that standing up to him is simply out of the question?

I repeat, the clock is ticking and the hour is late.  This is your last chance to save America from the Obama agenda.  You owe it to posterity to do more than just go through the motions.  You must actually try to succeed.   In this country’s critical hour, nothing less is acceptable.

And, like all “Strange New Respect” candidates, Mr. Frum urges Republicans to moderate their hard stance on abortion, no doubt to make it more in line with the highly reasonable position of Barak Obama, who only voted three times to deny medical care to premature infants lest the decision of the mother to abort be “complicated.”  As a further example of the urbane, erudite reflection the President has brought to this issue, our Harvard-legal-scholar President has characterized the question of when human beings acquire legal rights as above his pay grade.  Would that Republicans could even dream to match the President for his thoughtfulness, eloquence and moderation on this issue.

Also, Mr. Frum is deeply concerned about the bombastic tone of Rush’s message.  This is in contrast to the trim, well-tailored President Obama, who chose as his spiritual advisor a man who hurled hateful invective at  the United States from the pulpit, expressed glee over 9/11, and accused the US of inventing the Aids virus to perform genocide on the black race.  Our urbane (and have I mentioned how trim he is?) President has also been less than up-front with the truth about his own positions and the positions of his opponents, but what matter is that when you can look that good in a suit?

Perhaps, however, Mr. Frum isn’t looking for a Strange New Respect award.  Flattering your adversaries and denouncing your allies was SOP in the Bush administration, so perhaps Mr. Frum has simply acquired his political savvy from sitting at the feet of the Great Majority Builder himself.

Yes, we’ve been spending like drunken Democrats for years. But as appalling as that is, I don’t think the public punished us for that reason. I mean, really, would you punish people who’ve been spending like drunken Democrats by replacing them with drunken Democrats? I don’t think that the American people care that much about prodigal government spending anyway, especially when no one is articulating the importance of fiscal conservatism. Also, have Democrats in the last 2 years returned fiscal sanity to our process?

And if it comes to corruption, what rational person would replace corrupt politicians with Democrats?  Would a rational person replace corrupt Republicans with the party that gave us Whitewater, Chinagate, Monicagate, Travelgate, Perjurygate, and introduced us to the notion of parsing the meaning of words like “is?”

When we point to corruption, or prodigal spending, we are talking about why Republicans should have lost in a just and sane world. But if Republicans lost for just and valid reasons, then at the very worst, we should be in about a 50-50 tie with the Democrats in Congress, because they invented corruption and prodigal spending. But the American voters did not punish Republicans for rational reasons, they punished them based their uninformed perceptions. And that is why I attribute our losses to our lack of brains and backbone.

The first culprit that I must point to is President Bush. Now I am not saying that the President is an unintelligent man. I have never heard of a stupid fighter pilot. He is Ivy-League educated, with an MBA. He is a voracious reader. But he is very lacking when it comes to possessing basic political common sense.

I have written about this problem before, but I think it is important to bear it in mind when we look at how we got to our current dismal position. President Bush seemed to believe that the way you work in Washington is by being extraordinarily nice and deferential to Democrats. He thought that if he was only nice enough, they would reciprocate and we’d have a nice, cordial, collegial state of affairs in Washington where we all loved each other.

He was deferential to Democrats in many ways. He would criticize “Congress” when it was actually the Democrats in Congress who should have been criticized. He flattered Democratic politicians. He handed out awards to Democratic politicians. He even appointed Democrats to the Federal bench near the end of his turn (let your jaws drop on that one). To think that Democrats would be nice because he did these things was naive, but if he had just left it there he would not have left the Republican party in a shambles.

But he went on to a practice of almost complete passivity when Democrats viciously attacked him. Apparently feeling than any argument with Democrats was unseemly and beneath the office of the Presidency, he did not respond to accusations that he deliberately deceived the American people about Saddam’s WMDs. He let the media characterize the economy as being in a state of recession almost his entire term in office, and did nothing to try to dispel that misconception. He didn’t fight back when Democrats mischaracterized his Social Security reform proposals. He didn’t fight back against the absurd notion that his administration had tried to “smear” Joe Wilson; in fact, he helped that perception along, through appointing a special prosecutor to perpetuate the myth.

This “kick me” attitude of the President extended into the realm of the embarrassing when he and his wife did stand-up comic routines at White House correspondents dinners. Mrs. Bush told jokes about her husband and members of his administration that would have been considered the height of bad taste if they had come out of the mouth of John Stuart. The President repeatedly joked about how stupid he was, and in a moment that never will appear in “Profiles in Presidential Dignity,” did a comedy routine with a look-alike double. He also told an incredibly dirty and insulting joke about Dick Cheney in a room full of reporters who loathe the Vice President.

The President, in a further effort to ingratiate himself with his opponents, was also prone to insulting his own supporters. He was silent when Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or John Ashcroft were viciously attacked by the left, but immediately put conservatives in their place when they questioned the suitability of Alberto Gonzalez for the Supreme Court. He did the same when they questioned the appointment of Harriett Miers. He attacked the patriotism of conservatives who opposed him on immigration.

This behavior by the President can only be described as stunningly unintelligent politics. Never have I heard it said that “leadership means, never having to explain your decisions.” When the American people started believing manifestly untrue things, like the whole Iraq war was a fraud, or that Saddam had not ties to terrorism, the President had a duty to correct the record. To not do so, to let his opponents lie shamelessly and endanger his policies was incredibly unwise. The political consequences of his actions were deadly, as we can now see with Nancy, Harry and Barak running the entire show in Washington.

But even with the incredible hole President Bush dug for the Republican party, a possible salvation was presented to us when Barak Obama was the Democratic nominee. He presented a golden opportunity that could have been exploited, despite the President’s political malpractice. Unfortunately, we nominated John McCain.   McCain used “honor” in much the same way as President Bush used “New Tone.” In both cases, it meant, “the cool kids get to set the rules.” So McCain, in the name of “honor”, took Jeremiah Wright off the table from the get-go. He acted like he was sullying himself when he had to mention Bill Ayers. He barely mentioned Barak’s disgraceful opposition to the Born Alive Act. It wasn’t, apparently, dishonorable for Barkak to associate with Jeremiah and Bill, or support legalized infanticide, it was only dishonorable to mention that he did so. This was absurd. By this reasoning, the more heinous the outrage your opponent engages in, the more dishonorable you are for mentioning it. Also, much as Bush only applied “New Tone” to Democrats, McCain only applied “honor” to Democrats. He felt quite at ease snarling at Mitt Romney during the primaries, but couldn’t muster up any outrage over his Democratic opponent’s friendliness with a former member of the Weather Underground.

The lack of political smarts and spine did not end there. McCain praised Barak’s work as a community organizer. He let Harry Reid hoodwink him into suspending his campaign to “save” the $700 billion bailout and then allowed Harry to chase him out of town once he got there. His campaign scheduled not one, but two long interviews with network news anchors to introduce Sarah Palin to the American people (had anyone in his campaign ever heard the words, “left-wing media bias”?). He downplayed the fact that the Democrats were the ones who had opposed stricter regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He argued with his own supporters, defending Barak Obama’s honor, while he allowed Sarah Palin to be savaged without responding.

It is a mystery to me how a man with so much personal valor and who could dress down his North Vietnamese tormentors, could also have such feet of clay when it came time to stand up to Barak Obama.   Apparently, it is far easier to risk your life and well being in the defense of your country than it is to risk future guest spots on Letterman in the defense of your country.   In just the same way, it seemed far easier for fighter pilot George Bush to stand up to Islamofacists than it was to stand up to spoiled elitist children in Congress.

Others should be included in the list of culprits. There was Denny Hastert, who turned the William Jefferson scandal into a Republican liability by rushing to his defense when the Justice Department raided his office. There was Karl Rove, who allowed the President to be complacent before the 2006 midterms, discounting all poll information based on an untested theory about the effect of cell phones on all polling results.

And this will displease many, but I also am not certain that Sarah Palin has shown real political smarts and backbone to date. Yes, she had an awesome debut on the national political scene. But since the election ended, she has engaged in more of the “reaching out” rhetoric that President Bush was so noted for.   She has talked about how she is able to “reach across the aisles”.   She has praised Hillary Clinton excessively.   She has talked of how “honored” she would be to sit on a commission set up by Barak Obama.  She has continued to repeat nonsense from the campaign, talking about standing up to “special interests” and more of the “maverick” talk that I had thought was forced on her by the McCain people.   I have also read that she was blindsided by Kattie Couric, thinking that she’d get an easy interview because she’s a woman (did anyone ever say the words “left-wing media bias” to you, Governor?).   I am not convinced she is the person to look to to lead us all out of the wilderness.

Our pundits have also lacked quite a bit in the area of cranial capacities.   I find it amazing at how many conservative pundits totally ignored the destructive effect that President Bush’s political judgment was having on the state of the country.   Rather than pleading with him to change, to start standing up to the media and the Democrats, and set the record straight, they continued to praise him effusively. Rush, for instance, criticized every Republican involved in the Amnesty for Illegals issues except for President Bush, whose motives in Rush’s eyes remained pure.   He invented fanciful reasons for why President Bush remained so passive in the face of Democratic attacks and made this deadly fault seem like a virtue.   At NRO, half the staff seems to still be enamored with President Bush.   A shocking number of pundits seem unable to grasp the idea that President Bush’s “kick me” demeanor was a poison acting on the fortunes of the Republican party.

So, while I agree that an ethical, fiscally conservative Republican party, that practices the virtues it preaches is essential, I also believe that is not enough.   For if we don’t even see the need to articulate our point of view; if we become tongue-tied and embarrassed when reporters challenge us; if we continue to covet the approval of Democrats even as they viscously attack us; if we can’t even grasp the idea that the goal is to defeat Democrats, not have a love-in session with them; if we can’t quite remember for more than thirty seconds at a time that the news media is biased against us; and if we continue to fall in love with politicians who are leading us to ruin; then it won’t matter how virtuous we are, and how much we are adhering to Republican principles, and how brilliant our policy positions are.   You simply can’t win if you lack the politcal common sense to get out of the rain, or the backbone to stand up to your opponents.

So here are some basic guidelines that we should keep in mind, if we’re even going to turn this country around.

For Republican Politicians:

1. Democrats are not your friends, and nothing you can do will turn them into your friends. Flattering them, letting them lie, giving them sweetheart deals when they’re caught destroying classified documents, or even dissing your own supporters while the cool kids are listening in, will not make them into your friends.   They will, however, gladly play you for the sucker that you are if you do any or all of the above.

2. Reaching across the aisles in a spirit of bipartisan cooperation is not a policy goal, nor is it a virtue.   It is a strategy, to be employed only when it advances your actual policy goals (which quite possibly means never).

3. There really is a left-wing media bias, and it doesn’t disappear just because it’s easier to ignore it. Hence, when you schedule interviews with left-wing reporters, they will attack you and be hostile. However, they are not authority figures.  They are not the high school principal dressing you down for shooting spitballs in the classroom, so when they attack you, it’s okay to fight back.  It is not necessary to respond like a puppy dog that just got whacked on its snout with a rolled-up newspaper and called “bad dog”.

4. Since the left-wing media bias really exists, laying out great policy plans without accounting for this fact is not smart. Say you want to reform social security. The media will vilify the effort. Even if you are very nice to them, they will vilify it. You will have to go around them directly to the American people if you want to accomplish anything. Your first question, when you want to do anything, should be, “what about the left-wing media?” But since you have such a hard time remembering they are biased and hostile, stick a few post-it notes up on your bathroom mirror.  That way you can be reminded while you’re doing your hair or shaving in the morning.

5. Communication is the primary duty of a leader, not a boring side job that you can just ignore. Therefore, when the American people start to believe ridiculous things, like Saddam had no ties to terrorists, or you cooked up imaginary evidence to lead the country into a purposeless war, you need to get on the bully pulpit and change their perceptions.   It’s not undignified to correct the record when it’s distorted; it’s irresponsible to let dangerous ideas go unchallenged.   In a democracy, a leader must marshal public opinion to accomplish necessary things, not just mug for the cameras with a silly look on his face as he hula dances at the White House.

For conservative commentators:

1. Falling in love with a politician is a bad idea. You lose the ability to objectively evaluate his/her shortcomings when you do so. Making up silly reasons why the politician isn’t dropping the ball doesn’t change the fact when he/she is. Democrats can afford to fool themselves about people like Clinton or Obama, because the media helps them fool the American people. When we fool ourselves, we’re only fooling ourselves.

2. Don’t assume a politician is doing a wonderful job just because the right people hate him/her. Being irrationally hated by the demented crowd doesn’t necessarily mean your guy is doing a bang-up job.   They can’t stand a lot of people.

3. Your job is to hold our guys’ feet to the fire when they start to go wobbly. It isn’t to defend them from criticism from their own base.

4. We are losing.   There has been no “triumph” of conservatism.  Throw those books out.   We had a nice run going under Reagan, but that’s over.   We’re being routed, because our leaders surrendered the public debate to an intellectually unarmed opposition.   We will continue to lose badly unless we select leaders who are willing to wage the necessary rhetorical campaign that is ahead of us.

5. We have had two Bush administrations, followed by two total routs of the Republican party.   Keep that in mind before you start to promoting a Jeb Bush run at the White House.

You know you’re a Democrat if you can still crinkle up your face and say, “Left wing media bias, what left wing media bias?”

You know you’re a Democrat if you are a reporter for CNN, NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, PBS, USA Today, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, or for that matter, any newspaper in America that doesn’t have the words “Washington” and “Times” both appearing in its name.

You know you’re Democrat if you a liberal arts instructor at any university in America that doesn’t have the words “Hillsdale” and “College” both appearing in its name.

You know you’re a Democrat if you’re a pro-choice member of PETA.

You know you’re a Democrat if your term for saying true things about Democrats is “Swift Boating.”

You know you’re a Democrat if you’re dead and still voting.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think John Kerry is a war hero.

You know you’re a Democrat if you don’t know that John McCain, Bob Dole, and George H. W. Bush are real war heroes.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think people in wheel chairs can stand.

You know you’re a Democrat if you ever confused your rosary beads for an assault weapon.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think that Heinz named its steak sauce after the number of states in the Union.

You know you’re a Democrat if Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright were recently scratched from your Christmas greeting card list.

You know you’re a Democrat if you oppose school choice for all children but your own.

You know you’re a Democrat if you believe that a candidate’s military service was completely irrelevant in 1992 and 1996, relevant in 2000, of vital importance in 2004, and completely irrelevant in 2008.

You know you’re a Democrat if you would trust the same government that botched the response to Hurricane Katrina with providing you with your health care.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think that the question of when human beings acquire legal rights is above the pay grade of a lawyer and legislator.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think that, between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin is the gaffe machine.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think that the Webster’s Dictionary definition of “fighter pilot” is: “draft-dodging coward.”

You know you’re a Democrat if you still can’t admit that Alger Hiss was guilty.

You know you’re a Democrat if you’re pining for Castro-style socialist health care for American.

You know you’re a Democrat if you’re pining for Castro-style socialist everything else for America.

You know you’ve a Democrat if the first time in your life that you worried about the essential role of fathers in child development, and the last time in your life that you worried about the essential role of fathers in child development, was when you supported forcibly removing Elian Gonzalez from this country at gunpoint so he could live with his father in that worker’s paradise known as Castro’s Cuba.

You know you’re a Democrat if you support amnesty for all illegal aliens, but supported forcibly removing Elian Gonzalez from this country at gunpoint so he could live with his father in that worker’s paradise known as Castro’s Cuba.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think George Bush has shredded the constitution and trampled on our civil liberties, but supported forcibly removing Elian Gonzalez from this country at gunpoint so he could live with his father in that worker’s paradise known as Castro’s Cuba.

You know you’re a Democrat if you only part ways with Fidel Castro when it comes to the issue of offshore oil drilling.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think that the political party that abolished slavery, appointed the first black National Security Advisor, appointed the first two black Secretaries of State, appointed the first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appointed the first Hispanic Attorney General, appointed the first woman Supreme Court justice, and just gave us the first Vietnamese-American Congressman, is hopelessly racist and sexist.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think inflating your tires is a national energy policy.

You know you’re a Democrat if you know any of Jimmy Carter’s poems by heart.

You know you’re a Democrat if you’re feeling Strange, New Respect for Kathleen Parker.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think “Bush lied, people died,” but never questioned the timing of Bill Clinton’s impeachment bombings of Iraq.

You know you’re a Democrat if you can listen to Dick Durbin equate American soldiers with Nazis and Pol Pot, Dennis Kucinich question the mental stability of President Bush, John Kerry express the desire to shoot President Bush, Howard Dean announce that “I hate Republicans,” or a sermon by Barak Obama’s spiritual mentor, and think that Republicans need to tone down their rhetoric.

You know you’re a Democrat if you voted for a man who opposed protecting premature babies who survive late-term abortions because the Republican position on abortion is too extreme.

You know you’re a Democrat if you that attacking a Republican’s integrity, honesty, compassion, intelligence, decency and honor is fair game, but any questioning of a Democrat’s patriotism is a gross violation of political civility.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think the media has been in the tank for George W. Bush.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think the media has been too hard on Barak Obama.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think Barak Obama is a moderate.

You know you’re a Democrat if you could listen to Jeremiah Wright’s preaching for more than 2 minutes without getting up and walking out of his church.

You know you’re a Democrat if you could listen to Jeremiah Wright’s preaching for more than 20 years without getting up and walking out of his church.

You know you’re a Democrat (or John McCain) if you think it was dishonorable and tawdry for Republicans to make a campaign issue over Barak Obama’s ties to Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayes, but it wasn’t dishonorable and tawdry for Barak Obama to actually have ties to Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers.

You know you’re a Democrat if The Audacity of Hope is prominently displayed in the center of your coffee table.

You know you’re a Democrat if Living History was prominently displayed in the center of your coffee table before it was replaced by The Audacity of Hope.

You know you’re a Democrat if My Life was prominently displayed in the center of your coffee table before it was replaced by Living History.

You know you’re a Democrat if you’ve actually read any of The Audacity of Hope, Living History, or My Life.

You know you’re a Democrat if, prior to March 2008, you thought John McCain was a genuine war hero of deep convictions, a free-spirited maverick, and one of the very few Republicans you had any respect for, and post March 2008, you thought he was an erratic, nasty old man, whose POW experience only made him more unstable, and who was joined at the hip to President Bush.

You know you’re a Democrat if, between John McCain and John Kerry, you think John McCain was the one who was trying to “milk” his Vietnam war experience.

You know you’re a Democrat if you feel that Joe Wilson is an intrepid whistle-blower.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think that media rock stars Joe Wilson and Valorie Plame are suffering from a viscous Bush “smear” campaign.

You know you’re a Democrat if your ideal scientific research project would involve destroying human embryos to solve the problem of global warming.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think that hot weather is proof of global warming, cold weather is proof of global warming, rain is proof of global warming, snow is proof of global warming, hurricanes are proof of global warming, no hurricanes are proof of global warming, floods are proof of global warming, droughts are proof of global warming, shrinking ice caps are proof of global warming, expanding ice caps are proof of global warming, rising ocean levels are proof of global warming, lowering ocean levels are proof of global warming, and global cooling is proof of global warming.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think Al Gore is calm and reasonable.

You know you’re a Democrat if you don’t know that if Al Gore had had his way, the Florida recount would still be going on.

You know you’re a Democrat if you don’t know which of the “Two Americas” John Edwards belongs to.

You know you’re a Democrat if you are horrified by the practice of waterboarding terrorists, but were totally cool with removing the feeding and hydration tubes from a defenseless hospital patient so that she could be slowly and painfully starved and dehydrated to death.

You know you’re a Democrat if the civil liberties of terrorist concerns you more than the civil liberties of Joe the Plumber.

You know you’re a Democrat if you worry about the separation of church and state when the Catholic Church speaks out against legalized abortion; but when the Catholic Church speaks out against the Iraq war or the death penalty, or speaks in favor of socialized health care or blanket amnesty for illegal aliens, you think the religion can play a vital role in shaping our public policy.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think that CNN, NBC, CNBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, PBS, USA Today, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, almost every newspaper in America that doesn’t have “Washington” and “Times” both appearing in its name, every entertainment show, and virtually every movie produced by Hollywood, isn’t enough “balance” for 3 hours of Rush Limbaugh.

You know you’re a Democrat if you define limiting free speech on the public airwaves as “fairness.”

You know you’re a Democrat if “July 1969” reminds you of Woodstock instead of Apollo 11.

You know you’re a Democrat if you support the troops, except when it comes to giving them adequate funding for the missions you’ve voted to send them on.

You know you’re a Democrat if you support the troops, except when it comes to allowing their votes to be counted in closely contested presidential elections.

You know you’re a Democrat if you think that the entire Watergate scandal, had it happened during the Clinton administration, would have amounted to more than a two-paragraph summary at the bottom of page A-37 of the Washington Post.

One year, as a TV camera panning over the crowd at a huge pro-choice rally, a sign could be made out that said, “Pacifists for Choice.”  You know you’re a Democrat if you can’t see the irony in that image.

I kept on reading here on Red State that we had to work, work, work to get the vote out to defeat Barak. So finally, on Monday, I went over to my local RNC headquarters and volunteered to make some phone calls. I was handed a list of numbers and a little speech to give when people answer and went at it.

Lots of wrong numbers. And when I did get through, a couple people told me that the person I was asking to talk to “didn’t vote.” That seemed a little strange; how did that person get on the list if he or she isn’t a registered voter? Perhaps, I think, this person is tired of being badgered by RNC phone soliciters and just wanted to be left alone. This theory was borne out further when, after I identified myself as an RNC volunteer, another respondent said, “You’ve just lost yourself a vote.” He then informed me that he’d been contacted fifteen “bleeping” times and was “bleeping” sick of it. I can’t say that I was unsympathetic to the response, and apologized as I tried to get off the phone. For a larger number of calls, I recited into an answering machine the little blurb I’d been handed about how “John McCain supported victory in Iraq while Barak Obama voted for surrender, bla, bla, bla.” But after you’ve had umpteen phone messages getting with that or similar pitches, are you likely to go out and vote or are you just as likely to be sick of people bugging you and just stay home?

I left RNC headquarters after going through one list of numbers. I could have stayed, but Mr. You’ve-Lost-Yourself-A-Vote made me question the effectiveness, and even the propriety, of what I was doing. I felt what I was doing was harassment as much as anything else. How many times can you leave messages on peoples’ machines, or ask people to vote for John McCain, before you are more than anything else just a pain in the rear end that the respondent is sick of hearing from?

We all want to do our part, and it’s frustrating to sit by and watch your country go down in flames without trying to do something yourself. But are incessant phone calls to potential voters really helping elect anyone? As much as it might seem like passing the buck, wasn’t getting out the vote the job of John McCain, after all? Wasn’t it up to him to get out the vote by articulating a coherent, consistent message, producing effective commercials for the radio and TV, debating effectively, and not letting “honor” get in the way of mentioning that his opponent was friendly with anti-American nutjobs and had supported legalized infanticide? Aren’t we fooling ourselves when we think that by badgering marginally interested people with phone calls that we are making up for the lousy job the man or woman at the top of the ticket is doing? Are we chasing away as many or more people from the polls as we might by chance be convincing to go out and vote by making all these calls?

I wish I could say that I’m shocked by the campaign that you’re running, but sadly, I’m not. You are running just the type of campaign so many feared, and in the process serving the country poorly. You are using “honor” in a very strange manner. For all the world, your use of that word seems like a cover for evading the wrath of the elites, lest you dare inform the American people that a totally unfit man is about to be elected President of the United States.

Where is the honor in not fighting to prevent Barak Obama’s election? How is it honorable to make only halting, timid attempts to bring out the truth about this man? How is it honorable not to make a major issue of his support of legalized infanticide? How is it honorable to refuse to take issue with his choosing a paranoid anti-American like Jeremiah Wright for his spiritual mentor? How is it honorable to refuse to inform of the American people of his relationship with a former member of the Weather Underground? How is it honorable to not let the American people aware of his close financial ties to Fannie Mae? How is it honorable to sit back and watch such a man be elected President without doing everything in your power to inform the American people of what they are about to do?

In the eyes of history, will it reflect well on you that you ignored these issues, and decided instead to talk up “change” and your reputation for being a maverick? Will you look clean for having facilitated the media’s attempt to bury the truth about this man? Will you be covered in honor for having campaigned in this way?

Why do I get the impression that I, who was only 12 years old when the Vietnam War ended, feel more outrage than you do over Barak Obama’s affiliation Bill Ayers, a man who violently opposed the American government while you so bravely defended it? Why do you, the candidate endorsed by the National Right to Life Committee, feel no compelling need to highlight Obama’s shocking opposition to the Born Alive Act? Your patriotism is beyond pale, so why do you seem unconcerned with the paranoid anti-American rants of Jeremiah Wright? You have spent a political lifetime fighting against the corrupting influence of money in politics, so why are you so unconcerned about Obama’s financial ties to Fannie Mae?

You had the raw courage it takes to be a naval aviator, you risked your life for your country in the skies over Vietnam, you refused an offer to be sent home and escape the horrors of the Hanoi Hilton, and you endured years of torture with defiance and contempt toward your interrogators. How could you possess such a superabundance of physical courage but seemingly lack the moral courage to defend your country from a frightening extremist? Why were you more willing to endure the horrors of the Hanoi Hilton than you are willing to endure the disapproval of the elites in the media and the Democratic Party? Why does protecting America from Barak Obama seem less important to you than staying on the “A” list at the right dinner parties once the election is over?

You are sinking in the polls, and the hour is late. You are not winning with honor, you are losing with dishonor. But you have one card yet to play, and it is doing the right thing. You must make the case, strongly and repeatedly, in speeches, in debates, in radio commercials, in TV commercials, that Barak Obama is an extreme radical. You must not back down in the face of media condemnation and the disapproval of your friends across the aisle. You must risk the wrath of the “cool kids.” You have squandered so much time that you may not win even if you this. But I believe that you will surely lose if you do not. Honor demands that you take this course of action. It is time to put Country First.