Pop singer Barry Manilow. refusing to make a guest appearance on the The View, said,

“I strongly disagree with [Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s conservative] views. I think she’s dangerous and offensive. I will not be on the same stage as her.“

Whether Mr. Manilow finds those conservative fans who attend his concerts and buy his albums also dangerous and offensive, he did not say.

With the exception of the intelligent and beautiful Elizabeth Hasselbeck, The View could pass for the Democratic National Committee. Inherent in Manilow’s refusal to face Hasselbeck is the same problem so many other liberals and Democrats are afflicted with - the inability to articulate a cognent and coherent argument against a conservative viewpoint. Manilow may also have felt the odds of 5 liberals against 1 conservative to be an unfair disadvantage.

Barry Manilow is not alone in his fear of facing a conservative’s questioning. Every single leading Democratic presidential candidate backed out of a Fox hosted debate in Utah; fearful of what moderator Britt Hume might ask and question.

Republicans look at the military and see men and women in uniform honorably serving their country. Democrats look at the military and see “children.” The infantilization of the military by both the media and the Democrats is insulting to the brave men and women willing to serve and fight for not only our own freedoms, but so that others may have them also.

If Al Gore had not invented global warming would anyone remember who he was?

Whenever someone suggests we need government run health care, tell them to go stand in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles or the U.S. Post Office. Then then come talk about it.

Michael Moore is wrong. We don’t have to look to Canada, Cuba, France, or Great Britain to see the benefits of government run health care. We just have to look at our own V.A. Hospitals.

We are fighting an enemy that can not be appeased; if that were possible the French would already have done it.

One could arguably make the case that our failure to launch pre-emptive attacks against other countries ostensibly led to 9/11.

The bumper sticker on the Toyota Prius in front of me read, “Imagine World Peace.” The last person to “imagine” world peace also imagined there was no heaven, no hell, no countries, and no religion. He was shot dead in front of his wife by someone who imagined otherwise. Reality always trumps make-believe.

“War is not the Answer,” says the anti-war Left. To the contrary, and more often than not, war is the only answer. Throughout history, neither diplomacy nor appeasement has ever worked. If not for war, these antiwar protestors would merely be disaffected colonials protesting the excesses of the British Crown and Queen Elizabeth.

Democrats say they want to fight al-Qaeda and terrorism. They just don’t want to fight al-Qaeda and terrorism in Iraq.

The hubris of Global Warming fanatics is beyond belief. That somehow they could decide exactly what the Earth’s temperature should be and then somehow bring that temperature about, boggles the mind.

If instead of global warming we had global cooling, would Al Gore and his disciples be advocating the building of more power plants, refineries, and SUVs to warm the earth?

Democrats want to surrender Iraq and bring the troops home. Nancy Pelosi says we need to fight the “real war” on terrorism. Is the “real war” on terrorism to be fought from the barracks at Fort Bragg?

When the Left says they “support the Troops”, that doesn’t mean they support the troops mission in Iraq or their goal of victory. The Left’s support of the troops is pretending to feel sorry for them.

The biggest untold story since 9/11 is there has’t been another 9/11. Just don’t look for the Bush administration to receive any credit for that.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair may have said it best. Blair said that to him, 9/11 was a wake-up call. The problem is, he said, a lot of the world world woke up for a short time, then turned over and went back to sleep.

It is amusing to see so many Democratic presidential candidates campaigning against George Bush. Let’s hope they don’t learn too soon that President Bush has no plans to run for re-election in 2008.

Last week, hundreds of people layed down naked on an ice glacier to bring about an increasing awareness of global warming. After that little stunt, the only thing I became increasingly aware of is that winnowing the gene pool may have some merit after all.

Sports builds character it is said. Michael Medved says sports doesn’t build character - it reveals character. Looking at O.J. and Michael Vick, I would have to agree.

If Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and MacArthur had paid heed to the Pelosis and Reids of then, we should now be speaking German and marching to the tune of “Horst Wessel-Lied” or averting our eyes and bowing down before the Japanese Emperor.

What are we to think of a Democratic Party whose political success depends on the military defeat of the U.S. in Iraq? When the New York Times printed an opinion piece, “A War We Just Might Win” by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the liberal Brookings Institute, the left wing bloggers of Daily Kos went ballistic. Unfortunately for those of us that believe the United States of America is the greatest country in the world, the “Daily Kos”, along with “MoveOn.org”, is the Democratic Party.

The problem the Democrats are having is the tide of the war seems to be turning in America’s favor. They are finding themselves caught between “Iraq and a hard place.” The Democrats would still like to lose; but only if we can lose while under the Bush administration.

Democrat House Whip James Clyburn recently said if the forward progress being made in Iraq by General Petraeus continues, “that would be a real big problem for us.” For the Democrats who shun victory and desire defeat, progress in Iraq is very bad news indeed.

In light of the positive news beginning to come out of Iraq, the Democrats, who don’t make a statement or decision without seeing which way the wind is blowing, are gradually beginning to change their anti-war rhetoric. Not against Bush, of course, but on the war in general. A couple of months ago, Democratic presidential candidates were stepping all over themselves to see who could surrender in Iraq the quickest. Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinch won that race with a tie. They’d both be out of Iraq tomorrow morning.

Today, we are beginning to hear a different story from these contenders. A few days ago, Senator Dick Durbin of “Nazi, Soviet Gulag, Pol Pot regime” fame, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying American-led forces in Iraq were “making some measurable progress, but it’s slow going.” Not nearly enough for Mr. Durbin, of course. “As our troops show some progress toward security, the government of this nation is moving in the opposite direction. This is really unsustainable with the American people,” said Durbin. When the New York Times, who as done everything in it’s power to insure America loses in the war on terror, prints an opinion that maybe the US can win in Iraq, even blind Democrats have to stand up and take notice.

Sen. Joe Biden’s retort to Bill Richardson in the silly YouTube debate cut the knees off the “get out of Iraq now” crowd when he said a pullout of U.S. combat troops would take at least a year to complete, and that unless some U.S. troops remained in Iraq, all the American citizens would have to be evacuated as well. “You better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone [in Baghdad],” he said. “You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die.”

Following Joe Biden’s admonishment and the recent results from the USA Today/Gallup poll that shows the percentage of Americans who believe the surge and additional troops in Iraq are working rose to 31% from 22% a month ago, leadingDemocratic presidential candidates have lost their “out of Iraq today” vehemence, and while still pandering to their loony left-wing base, have at least acknowledged quitting Iraq immediately poses serious consequences.

Unfortunately, no matter how good the news out of Iraq, it will never meet the bar set by Democrats, primarily because the bar gets raised every time a bench mark is met. Nevertheless, the progress being made in Iraq cannot be ignored. So while even the most anti-war Democrats like Dick Durbin are forced to concede “measurable progress” in Iraq and that the surge is working, it would not be wrong to suggest the Democrats will not be satisfied. After all, Iraq did not elect a Thomas Jefferson as president, the violence in Baghdad is still almost as high as Washington, DC, and the Iraqis have yet to build a Disney World.

Americans do not like to lose. With a Democrat led congress and a liberal media, America “lost” in Vietnam and lived with shame and malaise for the next two decades. Do we need to “lose” again just so Democrats can remain in power?

In 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, lamenting on the current state of the War to a Georgia congressman, said “We have made a great mistake…and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be fatal mistake.”

Asked what that mistake was, Lee replied, “…In the beginning we appointed all our worst generals to command the armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers.”

Lee went on to explain that he had planned a number of campaigns and battles with as much diligence, care and thought as he could. In his mind, the plans seemed to be perfect but when he had fought them, he discovered defects and wondered why he had not seen them in advance.

“When it was all over,” Lee said, “I found by reading a newspaper that these best editor generals saw all the defects plainly from the start. Unfortunately, they did not communicate their knowledge to me until it was too late.”

Ever the gentleman and patriot, General Lee said he had no ambition but to serve the Confederacy in any capacity for which he might be assigned. He had done the best he could in the field but had not succeeded as he had wished. Therefore, said Lee, “I am willing to yield my place to these best generals, and I will do my best for the cause in editing a newspaper.”

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, said Monday that if the progress report on Iraq due this September from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker is generally positive, as appears of late to be the case, “that would be a real big problem for us.”

Are the Democrats so mired in their hatred for George Bush that winning the war in Iraq is a “big problem?” That their abhorrent, self-centered political ambitions and irrational loathing of Bush supersedes the vital interest of America winning the war in Iraq and radical Islamism is beyond belief and borders on sedition.

To paraphrase Mark Steyn, the Democrats who raise the white flag of surrender and believe that a failure in Iraq and the War on Terror in general will diminish George Bush and the so-called neo-cons, is to believe in the tooth fairy. The reality of the matter is that it will diminish all of us; this nation and all that we stand for.”

Like Goethe said, “Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.”

 One month after the November 2004 presidential election, the George Soros funded, loony, left-wing group MoveOn.org sent a declaration to the Democratic Party: “In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn’t need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it’s our Party: we bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back.”

Yesterday, MoveOn.org showed the Democrats they were not kidding. Armed with an online petition of some 265,000 web-addicted idiots, this lunatic fringe of Stalinists ordered the Nevada Democratic Party to cancel the August 14th presidential debate in Reno that was to be hosted by FOX News Channel, FOX News Radio, the Western Majority Project, and the Nevada State Democratic Party. Unsurprisingly to anyone who follows politics in the slightest, the Democrats caved, posting an excuse so lame it would be hilarious if the matter were not so serious.

After the Nevada Democratic Party announced they would host a 2008 presidential debate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), mistakenly believing he was the boss of the Democratic Party, said, “This is more great news for Nevada. I’m happy FOX News will be a partner for the August presidential debate. Western issues will be a major focus of this debate in particular. With FOX News as our partner, candidates will have an opportunity to not only speak to Nevada voters, but voters across the West who will be instrumental to electing a Democratic president in 2008.”

Obviously Sen. Reid spoke out of turn and failed to obtain a permission slip from MoveOn.org to make that statement. For no sooner had the Nevada State Democratic Party proudly announced the debate posting it on their web site with the praising endorsement of Sen. Harry Reid, when MoveOn.org rang the alarm and a cadre of socialist misfits, pony-tailed Kabballah-loving hippie rejects, and empty headed moonbats answered the call and flooded the Nevada Democratic Party with demands to reject FOX News from hosting the debate.

Nevada Democrats held out for a few days until the swelling tide of angry hard-core liberals overwhelmed them. Frantically searching for an excuse to cancel the debate, they latched onto a joke made by FOX News Channel chairman Roger Ailes during his acceptance speech at the 2007 RTNDF 1st Amendment Awards banquet. The joke was the sixth and last in a brief series of political one-liners in which Ailes, poking fun at President Bush, said, “And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don’t know if it’s true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, ‘Why can’t we catch this guy?’

Like Larry the Cable Guy says, “I don’t care who you are. That’s funny.” It was also the life preserver, albeit soggy, rotten and full of holes, but the Nevada Democrats grabbed onto it like it was the last lifeboat on the Titanic. “We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend such comments,” the letter said. “In light of his comments, we have concluded that it is not possible to hold a presidential debate that will focus on our candidates and are therefore cancelling our August debate. We take no pleasure in this, but it is the only course of action.”

Translated into simple English, that statement means (1) MoveOn.org controls the Democratic Party, (2) Democrats know that MoveOn.org controls the Democratic Party, (3) MoveOn.org is Stalinist in nature by dictating which media outlets are allowed to broadcast, and lastly (4) MoveOn.org is so pathetically immature and insecure that the very thought of having a conservative leaning network host a Democratic presidential debate would be a torture akin to Hell itself. That analogy is probably incorrect due to the fact that for so many liberals the religion of global warming is their faith and for those liberals who do profess a belief in the Almighty, they are already convinced they are living in Hell as long as George Bush is president.

For five years now, FOX News Channel hs been the most watched cable news channel in the nation and currently presents 9 out of the top 10 programs in cable news. Therefore it is not difficult to understand the frenzy and derangement that drives this looney element. The March 10, 2007 editorial from the Las Vegas Review Journal capsulizes, “This hyperventilation results from the fact that far-left Democrats have no comparable media outlet, nor any widespread national appeal, for their radical views in favor of heavy-handed regulation, wealth redistribution, diplomatic capitulation and economic protectionism. So they attack their rivals’ messenger with a reckless barrage of rhetoric that cuts down their own allies with friendly fire.”

If I were Senator Harry Reid or Representative Nancy Pelosi, I might begin to feel like Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in the movie, “Tora, Tora, Tora”. Upon reflection after the successful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto says, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Is MoveOn.org the Democrat’s awoken sleeping giant?

 This morning I was looking for the actual and accurate numbers as opposed to the made-up numbers in a recent column by NY Times’ economic doomsday prophet, Paul Krugman, when I ran across a post by Donald Luskin. One of Luskin’s readers, Robert Paci, had been reading the “Puffington Post” ( for humor, no doubt) and found a comment written by some left-wing loony liberal who is worried that his committment to “progressive” ideals - which he shamelessly defines as bigger government - is being undermined by the reality that most Americans don’t really want bigger government.

“The newest Democracy Corps polling/focus group report…has some stuff in there that also just scares the s*** out of me, and ought to scare anyone who cares about the broader progressive agenda.”

Look at some of these numbers:

A. If the federal government were to receive additional money, do you think that money is more likely to be spent well or is it more likely to be wasted?

• Spent well: 13%
• Wasted: 83%

B. The government does more to help people get ahead in life.

• 30% agree

C. The government mostly gets in the way of the economy and job growth.

• 57% agree

…Which statement do you identify more with?

I want Congress to first invest in areas like health care, education, and energy, even if means spending additional money.

• 36% agree

or…

I want Congress to first focus on cutting wasteful spending and making government more accountable.

• 58% agree

Even in this day and age, the Democratic Party of progressives and liberals are still dumfounded to learn that Americans believe they know better how to lead their lives than the government does.

No sooner had Academy Award winner Albert Gore waddled up to the podium to collect his gold Oscar for best fiction in a documentary feature insipidly titled, An InconvientTruth, than it was learned that Mr. Gore practice naught what he preacheth.

It is well past the time for America to learn that the war on terrorism is unlike any war this nation has ever waged. The enemy we face today has no national borders, no government, no territory, and no recognizable armed forces. And yet we have Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John W. Warner who wish to provide protections to these terrorists as if they were uniformed soldiers of a civilized nation engaged in war.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, wrote the following in a letter to Sen. John McCain, “The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 [of the Geneva conventions] would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.” Is the General implying that what the world thinks of our moral basis in fighting terrorism is more important than whether we win this war against terrorism?

"To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk," Powell continued. Does the General actually believe that by applying Geneva Convention protections to terrorists will actually persuade them to apply those same protections to captured U.S. forces? That is so totally unrealistic that it borders on the absurd. If al Qaeda or any other terrorist group captures an American soldier that soldier will be lucky if his head remains attached to his body for any length of time. Our solders already know this.

The rules of the Geneva Convention were written by civilized nations that when they do fight wars they will do so in accordance with some civilized rules. We are not fighting a civilized nation. We are not fighting a nation at all. We are fighting radical Islalamofacists who will stop at nothing to kill all of us. They could care less about the Geneva Convention.

Senator John McCain should know this more than anyone. He spent five and half years as a prisoner of North Vietnam. He was tortured by Vietnamese soldiers who stabbed him with bayonets and beat him with rifle butts. He was placed in solitary confinement and interrogated daily. When he refused to talk, he was beaten until he lost consciousness. North Vietnam was a signatory to the Geneva Convention. It did not protect John McCain.

Andrew C. McCarthy, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, may have said it best.

"Let’s not mince words here: Our soldiers, if captured by Islamic terrorists, will be tortured and killed. That’s what Islamic terrorists do. That’s why awed admiration is the only proper response to the bravery of our men and women in uniform. They fight for us despite knowing, as we should all by now know, that nothing we do affects the jihadists’ behavior.

On the other hand, if we were to fight another conventional war against the honorable combatants of a nation-state, that country’s forces — like our own — would be solemnly bound to (as well as self-interested in) compliance with their Geneva Convention obligations regarding prisoners of war. Again, how we deal with al Qaeda now is irrelevant to the treatment our forces will receive in any future conflict.

So, no, we don’t owe jihadists the same trial rights we owe any honorable combatants, much less our own troops. The very notion is an insult to those putting their lives on the line in our defense. That aside, though, the incentives these senators would create are perverse. It is an elementary rule of human nature that when behavior is rewarded, it begets more of the same. Rewarding terrorists with rights to which they have no legal entitlement can only encourage their methods — a cost McCain, Graham, and Warner would apparently have us bear despite the absence of any discernible benefit."

The way we treat or interrogate Islamo terrorists will not have any effect on how they will treat an American soldier unfortunately captured. We are talking about a culture that beheads its prisoners, tortures and mutilates its own citizens, and thinks nothing of sacrificing their sons and daughters by strapping an explosive bomb in their backpack and sending them into a crowded pizza parlor. These terrorists use the Geneva Convention and our own Constitution as protection so than can kill us. Like Cal Thomas says, " We want to live and they want us dead. Any questions?"

 

 More often than not, war is the only answer. Throughout history, appeasement has never worked. Neither has diplomacy when dealing with dictatorships, fanatical Islamists, or mentally incompetent heads of state. If it were not for war, those who now foolishly carry their signs protesting war, and in particular, “George Bush’s war on terror”, would not be free to carry those signs.

 As Mark Steyn recently said in reply to a letter he received, “Presumably if war is “never” the answer, those wrinkly Vietnam love-in types would be happy for the British Crown to have its rebel colonies back.”

Don Feder, former Boston Hearld columnist, writes that if it wasn’t for war we would have no country because America was born on the battlefield. If it wasn’t for war, half the world would be singing the German national anthem and the other half would be bowing to the honorable emperor of Japan.

“And now, let us say a few good words for warfare and violence. Those whose mantra is violence-never-solved-anything, are dogma-blinded, historical illiterates who would lead us down the soft path to national suicide.

Without warfare and violence, we would have no country. America was born on the battlefield. (George III would never have let us go without a fight.)

The Declaration of Independence was noble words penned on paper. It was the sword that gave them a reality. In this instance, the perpetrators of revolutionary violence included John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington – men of learning and ability all.

Without warfare and violence the 11 states of the Confederacy would have successfully seceded in 1861, leaving us with two truncated nations. And the slaves would have been pickin’ cotton for ‘ole massah for at least a few decades more.

Without warfare and violence in 1939-1945, today, half the world would be singing “Deutschland uber Alles,” while the other half bowed to the honorable emperor of Japan.

And without warfare and violence during the Cold War, the world would have been swallowed up by a monstrous ideology responsible for 100 million deaths in the 20th century.

Today, the choice is warfare and violence or total submission to Islamofascism –the annihilation of the Jewish people, the subjugation of women, dhimmi status for those infidels still alive and a world governed by a barbaric desert ethos.”

            
It is time to face the hard cold fact that Militant Islam wants to kill us. They want to kill us for the simple reason we do not believe as they do. You can not negotiate with people whose minds are that sick. How do you negotiate with an enemy who think nothing of strapping a bomb-laden backpack to their nine year-old daughter and have her walk into a crowded pizza parlor to to blow herself up with as many Jews as possible? How do you negotiate with an enemy whose interpretation of the Geneva Convention in regard to prisoners of war is to saw the prisoner’s head off in front of television cameras?