Over at The American Prospect, they decided to get a head start on scaring the public half to death this Halloween season by publishing a “Liberal Manifesto” which carefully lays out what the authors believe all good liberals should stand for.

This kind of earnestness on the part of the left is something we’ve grown used to over the years. In fact, it is a defining characteristic of modern liberalism, this cloying self righteousness. It fits in with their constant need to avoid introspection by formulating intellectual conceits based on a heroic self-image, standing up against the villainy of the opposition with only the lantern of truth and a pen to battle evil. Creating a “moral” universe that has about as much foundation as a pool of quicksand, liberals who are constantly defining and redefining themselves fail to see the monumental irony in their efforts to simplify their riot of conceits into any kind of logical or coherent set of principles.

Give the boys at American Prospect credit for trying. However, in the process of trying to be politically reasonable – for example; with regard to the use of force – the authors reveal where the emotional underpinnings of Bush Derangement Syndrome originates as well as a truly frightening glimpse into a future where foreign policy is run by the left:

Make no mistake: We believe that the use of force can, at times, be justified. We supported the use of American force, together with our allies, in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. But war must remain a last resort. The Bush administration’s emphatic reliance on military intervention is illegitimate and counterproductive. It creates unnecessary enemies, degrades the national defense, distracts from actual dangers, and ignores the imperative necessity of building an international order that peacefully addresses the aspirations of rising powers in Asia and Latin America.

The misapplication of military power also imperils American freedom at home. The president claims authority, as commander in chief, to throw American citizens into military prison for years on end without any hearing, civil or military, that would allow them to confront the charges against them. He claims the power to wiretap Americans’ conversations without warrants, in direct violation of congressional commands. These usurpation’s presage what are likely to be even more drastic measures if another attack takes place on American soil.

“Unnecessary enemies?” Name one nation pre-Iraq War who wasn’t an enemy and who now sports an undying hatred of the United States as a result of our intervention?

The blindness necessary to posit the notion that America’s enemies have changed in the last decade, much less the last five years is Exhibit 1 in the case against liberal control of foreign policy. After all, the mullahs wanted to talk to us in 2003 and we spurned them! Gotta be the Iraq War that made Ahmadinejad call for our destruction. The fact that one of the most consistent policy pronouncements out of the Iranians since the 1979 revolution has been statements supporting the destruction of Israel and the United States doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent in the thought processes of even these liberal “hawks.”

And please note the inclusion of Bosnia and Kosovo in places liberals are willing to use force – two interventions where no US interests were involved, that the United Nations did not sanction the use of force, and where conservative Republicans made up President Clinton’s most vocal supporters.

It is this kind of myopia that shows itself throughout this Manifesto. Witness very carefully what these “sane” liberals believe:

We reaffirm the great principle of liberalism: that every citizen is entitled by right to the elementary means to a good life. We believe passionately that societies should afford their citizens equal treatment under the law—regardless of accidents of birth, race, sex, property, religion, ethnic identification, or sexual disposition. We want to redirect debate to the central questions of concern to ordinary Americans—their rights to housing, affordable health care, equal opportunity for employment, and fair wages, as well as physical security and a sustainable environment for ourselves and future generations.

Instead of securing these principles, the president and his party view the suppression of votes indulgently and propose new requirements for voting that will make it still harder for the poor and the elderly to exercise their democratic rights.

Absolutely fascinating. After an obligatory nod to constitutional protections, the “central questions” of concern to ordinary voters may very well be what liberals believe they are. What should scare the bejeebees out of these same voters is how our friends on the left plan on accomplishing these feats of legislative legerdemain in order to bring about our liberal utopia.

What is a “fair” wage? Who decides? Is there really a “right” to housing? Maybe I was asleep in civics class when that part of the Constitution was discussed. And we’ve already seen the inventive ways that liberals define “equal opportunity” for employment. By taking a necessary function of the national government – protecting minorities from discrimination – and turning it into a weapon used at the beck and call of the special pleaders in the so-called civil rights movement, liberals have made criminals of companies whose only transgression is that they got in the cross hairs of groups like the NAACP, PUSH, or other legalized extortion outfits.

But it is in their not well concealed hatred of the President and their ideological opponents that we see where the intellectual underpinnings of Bush Derangement Syndrome originates. To actually believe that both political parties don’t do their damnedest to suppress the opposition’s vote is either the height of naivete or delusional thinking. I daresay the massive, coordinated campaign in the press over the last several weeks designed to discourage Republicans (especially religious conservatives) from voting gives the lie to any attempt to assign blame for quashing votes to one side only.

And to further believe that it is voter “suppression” to take the most modest of steps to ensure that the historically crooked big city machines (run by Democrats) aren’t able to cheat on election day by requiring people to be able to prove they are who they say they are when showing up at the polls in order to keep them from voting a dozen or more times is pure sophistry.

Sophistry would be an improvement over this kind of idiocy:

The administration’s denial of reality reaches a delusional peak in its refusal to acknowledge basic science describing the massive climate change now under way. Against the advice of all serious experts, the government has grossly failed in its responsibility to our descendants. It has consistently sought to undermine the Kyoto treaty and refused to encourage energy conservation. We insist on a clean break with this shameful record. Our government should be taking the lead in reducing greenhouse gases, recognizing our responsibilities as the world’s leading polluter. We should be investing massively in energy sources that carry out a commitment to environmental stewardship and help restore our manufacturing base at the same time.

First, there is nothing “basic” about the science of global warming or climate change. There may, in fact, be no more complex question ever confronted in a collective way by so many scientific disciplines. Perhaps the scientific riddle of the atomic bomb, an effort that involved chemists, several branches of theoretical physicists, and engineers, to name a few rivals the problems confronting the scientific community in coming up with practical answers to the questions surrounding the theory of global warming. It doesn’t help that ideology has so suffused the debate that contrarians can be tarred with the sin of denying reality. Which reality? Whose reality?

The only consensus that scientists seem to have achieved is that the planet is getting warmer and that humans are at least partially to blame. Beyond that, specific, measurable, scientific progress in answering basic questions like why are CO2 levels in the lower atmosphere not rising as fast as the models say they should or is global warming actually a result of cyclical solar activity is lacking.

Does requiring proof before we penalize ourselves to the tune of a couple of trillion dollars in lost and reduced economic activity make sense? Not to a liberal. And the Manifesto’s call for a restoration of our manufacturing base at the same time that we’re supposedly slashing our greenhouse gas emissions to 1993 levels as called for by Kyoto is jaw dropping stupidity. How, praytell, are we to increase economic activity in a sector of the economy that contributes enormous amounts of greenhouse gas emissions while staying competitive with China and India – two nations not obligated under Kyoto to curtail their atmospheric pollution?

Smoke and mirrors, I guess. As long as the smoke doesn’t pollute.

Where the Manifesto loses much of its focus is in this digression from the facts:

The administration’s contempt for science is of a piece with its general disdain for reason—a prejudice that any modern society ought to have left behind. Whether confronting scientific research, evolution, birth control, foreign policy, drug pricing, or the manner in which it makes decisions, the Bush administration has defied evidence and logic, sabotaging its own professional civil servants. It refuses serious consultation with experts and critics. It acts secretly, in defiance of the powers of Congress. It refuses to identify those whose advice it solicits, even concealing the names of the vice president’s staff. It stifles civil servants attempting to do their jobs. It appoints cronies whose political loyalty cannot compensate for their incompetence. When challenged, it responds with lies and distortions.

A close look at this litany of complaints reveals some truth along with some typical liberal bunkum. Refusing to listen to critics and not taking the advice of political foes would be sins committed by every President since Washington. Cronyism is also as old as the republic – although this Administration has made a nasty habit of placing their cronies in positions where they fail miserably – and publicly.

But “sabotaging” its civil servants? And what powers of Congress has the Administration “defied” by acting secretly? This is hyperbole, pure and simple. Perhaps more than other recent Administrations, this one has found itself at war with the inside the beltway crowd – especially in the intelligence community. But civil servants are not elected. And when they seek to undermine policy established by elected officials just because they disagree with it, what else are you to do except “stifle” them? The brazenness with which this kind of bureaucratic turf protection and disregard has gone on for 6 years should have these good government liberals up in arms. Except, of course, they agree with the bureaucrats that policies they oppose should be squelched.

While the Manifesto is primarily inoffensive liberal pablum, this section is risible:

This government’s failures to respect the process of public reason have generated predictable consequences—none of them good. The Bush administration has failed to protect its citizens from disaster—from foreign enemies on September 11, 2001, and from the hurricane and flood that afflicted the Gulf Coast in 2005. It has driven the war in Iraq to an impasse. It is incapable of presenting a plausible strategy to bring our military intervention to a tenable conclusion.

How does a failure “to respect the process of public reason” by this Administration prevent an attack where the terrorists who carried it out were trained and nurtured under the previous do-nothing Presidency of Bill Clinton and while the United States government ignored the ideology that animated them for more than a quarter century? And “public reason” should tell any rational person to get the hell out of the way of a hurricane – which highlights the failure of state and local governments to implement their own disaster plans not Washington’s timid and belated response once the storm had hit.

Finally, the Manifesto makes clear what the real problem with America is; too many people vote for conservatives:

We refuse to confine our criticisms to personalities. We believe that the abuses of power that have been commonplace under Bush’s rule must be laid not only at his door—and the vice president’s—but at the doors of a conservative movement that has, for decades, undermined government’s ability to act reasonably and effectively for the common good.

We love this country. But true patriotism does not consist of bravado or calumny. It resides in faithfulness to our great constitutional ideals. We are a republic, not a monarchy. We believe in the rule of law, not secret prisons. We insist on justice for all, not privilege for the few. In repudiating these American ideals, the Bush administration disgraces America and damages our claim to democratic leadership in the larger world.

Now this is more like the liberalism we’ve come to know and love; irrational, incoherent, sloganeering instead of rational thought, gross exaggeration, and the inevitable contradictions – as in the authors generously “refusing to confine their criticisms to personalities” and then proceeding to do so by saying that the “Bush Administration disgraces America.”

But it is the calumnious statement that conservatives have “for decades, undermined government’s ability to act reasonably and effectively for the common good” that the authors reveal modern liberalism to be the collectivist nightmare they truly are. Any group or ideology that purports to speak for the “common good” in a country of such radically diverse interests, sects, races, creeds, and economic strata should be feared. Not only is the Manifesto saying that the American people are idiots because they have voted for conservatives consistently over the last quarter century, but that conservatives themselves are illegitimate guardians of the public trust with regards to the “common weal.”

I believe in the collective wisdom of the people over the ability of government to determine what is actually the “common good.” And this is the primary difference between liberals and conservatives. In a nation of 300 million people, popular will makes itself known only through the ballot box and not in some academics ivory tower or conference room at a liberal think tank. The failure of modern liberalism to understand this simple, straightforward truth about America and her people is why they continue to lose elections – not because they haven’t “defined themselves” properly. They can come out with a dozen “Manifestos” and as long as they refuse to acknowledge their utter and complete contempt for the will of the people, they will remain in the political wilderness.

As the Democrats seem poised to take power on election day, liberals might remind themselves that only the extraordinary hubris and stupidity of Republicans and not any grand clash of ideas is giving them this victory. If they have learned nothing from Republicans about listening to the people as to what constitutes the “common good” and continue to treat the voters as wayward children who need to be coddled and nannied, then they will almost certainly be returned to the political oblivion to which they have been banished these many years.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Is the Iraq War lost? We’ll discuss that and the midterms.

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Regular readers may have noticed that posts have been few and far between this week. In fact, yesterday was only the 3rd day since I started this blog more than 2 years ago that I didn’t post a word.

The truth is, I’m a little burned out. Most days I write between 2000 – 3000 words. Usually much more – closer to 5000. I also spend another 8-10 hours scanning and reading blogs, other media, as well as answering 50 or so emails.

Suffice it to say, I’m suffering from mild burnout. I don’t really feel like writing much – something that hasn’t happened before. Can’t get excited about anything lately. In fact, things have gotten downright depressing. However, that’s not the reason I’m taking today off. There’s plenty to write about – just need to get a little motivated to do so.

So I am going to turn the computer off and stay away from it all day and night. Maybe when I get up tomorrow I’ll be re-energized. Or maybe I’ll think I’ll need another day to clear the cobwebs.

In the meantime, why not check out my archives? I’ve got some nice history pieces. And I always thought my Cindy Sheehan stuff was pretty good.

I appreciate everyone’s understanding. Need to get a second wind as we head down the stretch toward November 7.

UPDATE 10/24 – AND THANKS FOR THE SLAP IN THE FACE

Okay, okay. I appreciate the expressions of sympathy. I appreciate even more the two-by-four a couple of you whacked me upside my head to knock some sense into me.

My little vacation (which I enjoyed immensely) is over and I will have a typical snarky take on the new “Liberal Manifesto” sometime early this afternoon.

Try as I might, I’m just not that shocked at the news that Ted Kennedy and other Democratic liberal Senators were willing to work with the Soviet Union in a joint PR campaign to undermine and defeat President Reagan at the polls in 1984.

Bryan at Hot Air has the skinny on what is either the most egregious violation of trust in the history of the United States Senate or the most calumnious lie ever told about – love him or hate him – one of the most dedicated public servants in American history:

There’s a new book on Ronald Reagan making the rounds, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. Its author, Paul Kengor, unearthed a sensational document from the Soviet archives. That document is a memo regarding an offer made by Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts via former Senator John Tunney, both Democrats, to the General Secretary of the Communist Party, USSR, Yuri Andropov, in 1983. The offer was to help the Soviet leadership, military and civilian, conduct a PR campaign in the United States as President Ronald Reagan sought re-election. The goal of the PR campaign would be to cast President Reagan as a warmonger, the Soviets as willing to peacefully co-exist, and thereby turn the electorate away from Reagan. It was a plan to enlist Soviet help, and use the American press, in unseating an American president.

There are many reasons why this might not be true, not the least of which is that Soviet agents were notorious for lying to their superiors – especially when it came to bragging to their bosses about Americans who may or may not have worked with Communists. Contained in the million or so pages of documents that came to light in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union are the names of dozens of prominent Americans that Soviet agents claimed were helping the Communist cause, including FDR’s friend and closest White House advisor Harry Hopkins as well as famous entertainers like Marilyn Monroe. The long and short of it is, you need a helluva lot more than one memo to prove that Ted Kennedy wanted to take part in this scheme.

Ted Kennedy helped invent the modern Senate. His knowledge of its workings as well as his advocacy for issues like education, health care, and workers’ rights have transformed what at one time was a clubby, almost aristocratic body where little of domestic importance happened into a liberal legislative laboratory, often driving changes in the law ahead of the House. Kennedy’s encyclopedic knowledge of Senate procedure has allowed him to triumph in the face of almost certain defeat many times. In this respect, he is one of the giants in the history of Congress.

He is also a vainglorious hypocrite, scion of one of the most screwed up families in American history who has demonstrated time and time again that he believes that the law does not apply the same way to he and his family as it does to the rest of us. In this respect, I always thought Kennedy one of the greatest threats to American liberty ever to serve in Congress and that defeating many of his more outrageous proposals to smother the American spirit to be a patriotic duty.

The point is, it is not beyond imagining Kennedy or any other liberal from that period taking part in such an effort to betray their trust. This is because one of the core tenets of modern liberalism is that ordinary morality that may apply to most of us can be set aside in the name of a higher goal. For Kennedy, his belief that he would be preventing nuclear war overrode any more mundane considerations like loyalty to the country or his President. This kind of action feeds the liberal’s heroic self image while also revealing the dirty little secret of the New Left; they consider ideals like patriotism and love of country subservient to their belief in the universality of man. And from the time of the Russian revolution until the fall of the Berlin Wall, they felt that spirit – despite all evidence to the contrary – was embodied in the old Soviet Union.

I predict that not much will be made of this revelation in the media. Too many years have gone by and the information itself is so tenuous that it will be difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. It will probably be treated the same way that revelations about the possible resting places for Saddam’s WMD in Syria has been covered by the press. But the fact that the information is in and of itself believable says much about the modern left and their continuing war against all that is decent and good in America while calling into question the patriotism and loyalty of such people.

In a jaw dropping post on Anderson Cooper’s 360 Blog, Executive Producer David Doss reveals that CNN not only doesn’t care if their broadcasts give aid and comfort to the enemy in Iraq, but also that there is no difference between a US sniper and an enemy sniper.

One doesn’t have to read between the lines of this post nor does one have to put words into Doss’s mouth to understand exactly where CNN stands when it comes to the United States and the American military being at war. After outlining the sequence of events that led to the network broadcasting a tape of insurgent snipers shooting at 10 American soldiers, Doss proves that he is either the dumbest schmuck ever to work in TV or that he realized full well the propaganda value of the tape to the insurgents:

We are assuming they included the sniper tape to prove the authenticity of the Al-Shimary interview tape and to establish their credibility. Of course, we also understood that some might conclude there is a public relations benefit for the insurgents if we aired the material, especially on CNN International. We also understood that this kind of footage is upsetting and disturbing for many viewers. But after getting beyond the emotional debate, we concluded the tape meets our criteria for newsworthiness.

What kind of an idiot would “assume” that they included a tape of insurgents killing Americans to an American media outlet simply for purposes of authentication? Anyone with more than one brain cell working can see the PR benefit to the insurgents. Writing that “some might conclude” this is so is idiocy. Everyone believes it to be so – except the deliberately blind and self deluded.

And I am very happy for CNN that they were able to get “beyond the emotional debate.” I’m sure it was a travail trying to decide whether or not to glorify the insurgents who were shooting at Americans.

Is that too harsh a judgement? Think again:

You should also know we tried to put all of this in context. Our reporting included an interview with a current U.S. sniper in Iraq. He’s been both under attack from insurgent snipers and he has himself operated as a sniper. We also heard from Major General William Caldwell, a coalition forces spokesman in Iraq, and CNN military analyst General David Grange, formerly with the Green Beret, Delta Force and Army Rangers.

In his own words, Doss makes it crystal clear that CNN views a US sniper in exactly the same context as an Iraqi sniper. Their refusal to acknowledge the difference – that one side is killing Americans and the other side is killing the enemy – is perfectly in keeping with many (not all) media outlets who refuse to make a moral judgement about which side they are on.

I reject the notion that the nature of war reporting must necessarily make a journalist neutral. For the reporter not to recognize that 1) he is being used by people who are killing his neighbors and his neighbor’s children; and 2) that there is in fact a moral difference between those who are fighting to defend the reporter’s freedoms while the other side is fighting to take them away smacks of a breathtaking myopia that one must actually work at in order to succeed in efforts to be “neutral.”

A journalist who allows himself to be used as a tool to advance the enemy’s goals of turning the American people further against the war is no better than a paid propagandist of that enemy. This is so clear that anyone who might argue to the contrary must tie themselves in Gordian knots of logic in order to come down on the other side.

Reporting on the enemy is one thing. Telling us who they are and why they are fighting is probably unnecessary but relatively harmless. But what CNN did with the tape of enemy snipers shooting and killing Americans is something so far beyond the pale as to call into question CNN’s commitment to the “unvarnished truth.” Whose truth? Why, the enemy’s truth, of course. And by giving “context” to the story by placing the actions of an American sniper side by side with those of an insurgent’s shows that the network has a hard time with morally differentiating between the two sides. As impossible as that might sound, there can be no other conclusion drawn from CNN’s actions.

Also, while some lefty viewers were apparently satisfied that “both sides” of the conflict were being shown (as if it were a given that it not be necessary to take sides), some of the more bloodthirsty liberals were mad that the American people were spared the moment that the bullets made impact on the bodies of American citizens:

Others praised us for showing the threats U.S. military personnel actually face: “Thanks for having the guts to show the sniper update and to show us the other side of the story. Please continue to give us the truth; I know the network is bound to be taking heat.”

And still others thought by dipping to black and not showing the moment of impact of the sniper rounds we were sanitizing the horror of war: ” ... I think the reason it took Americans so long to come around on this war is because they somehow did not think it was real because they never saw anyone hurt … you guys need to show the unvarnished truth.”

Just goes to show that when it comes to giving aid and comfort to the enemy, you just can’t please all the people all the time.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

It’s a grab bag Friday as we read and comment on a number of issues involving politics, culture, and foreign policy.

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Making up for lost time with the Watchers Council is getting to be bad habit. Hence, here are two more weeks of goodies from my Council buds.

Results from W/E 10/6

Council

1st place: Gates of Vienna for “Peace and War on an Autumn Afternoon.”

2nd Place: Shrinkwrapped for “There are no Words.”

3rd Place: Joshuapundit for “The Horrors of Club Gitmo – and Camp Pendleton.”

Non Council

1st Place: Rants and Raves for “Observations on Arabs.”

2nd Place: One Cosmos for “On Perversions, Pedophiles, and the Homophobes of the Left.”

3rd Place: Classical Values for “Unnecessary Divisions over Unnecessary Divisions.”

Results for W/E 10/13

Council

1st Place: Yours truly for “As Long as We’re Talking, We’re Not Shooting At One Another.”

2nd Place: Shrinkwrapped for “Changes.”

Non Council

1st Place: Reconquista for “Is Islam Waging War on the World?”

I also want to give a shout out to the Council’s newest member American Future. Welcome Marc and good luck. Also a heartfelt thanks to Matt Barr for his participation with his blog Socratic Rythmn Method. Good luck to Matt!

If you’d like to participate in the weekly Watcher’s vote, go here and follow instructions.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

In this, the season of Republican discontent, the various tribes that make up the GOP have been slapping on the war paint and dancing the war dance while getting ready for the big day.

No, not election day. The real fun begins the day after the vote when the recriminations following a probable Republican loss of the House (and perhaps the Senate) will explode into the kind of internecine warfare not seen by the GOP since the Goldwater debacle of 1964. Many conservatives will have the long knives out hunting for scalps, looking for scapegoats, and readying the hot tar and feathers for use against some very special targets.

The immediate butt of their ire will be a small but influential group of pundits who, to one degree or another, are predicting a GOP loss prior to the election while intimating in so many words that perhaps this is the best thing that could have happened to the party at this time. The logic (or insanity depending on one’s world view) used to justify this position is that a thoroughly chastened GOP will magically reform itself in two years, kick out the deadwood in Congress, throw up a new generation of dynamic conservative leaders who will take the party back to the promised land in 2008.

Yeah. Right.

It should be noted that there is a difference between those, like Richard Baehr, Chief Political Correspondent for The American Thinker, whose coldly rational and logically devastating look at Republican prospects in November points to a probable takeover by Democrats of the House and those who actually look forward to a GOP defeat, believing that it would be good for the party. After all, with a half dozen seats written off already due to the malfeasance or turpitude of the GOP member, the historical forces at work during the off year election of a second term incumbent become extremely difficult to overcome when the margin for error is as small as it is for the GOP.

I have dubbed this group of GOP curmudgeons Reynoldistas after Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds whose “Pre Mortem” post on the election raised the hackles of many conservatives who felt the blogger was being a defeatist by listing the reasons for the GOP’s probable downfall. Reynolds makes it clear that he believes that the GOP deserves to lose while also saying that the Democrats don’t deserve to win. Is this defeatist? Or realism? Or, as Mr. Reynolds claims, is it simply analysis?

It is perhaps unfair to lump Reyonolds in with other pundits who are actually urging people to sit on their hands on election day in order to teach the GOP ” a lesson.” The problem is that the effect that Reynolds has on the thinking of other bloggers and, more importantly, the fact that he is widely quoted by the opposition, does tend to raise the visibility of questions surrounding conservative commitment to voting on election day. Whether he realizes it or not, many see his belief that Republicans deserving defeat is no different than those Republicans who believe a Democratic takeover would somehow be good for the party.

As a counterpoint to the Reynoldistas, there are many conservatives who are dismissing the polls out of hand while confidently predicting that the GOP will hold on to both Houses of Congress despite the seeming lack of evidence for such optimism. I have dubbed these sunny side of the street Republicans Hewittonians after the most enthusiastic and eternally optimistic Hugh Hewitt. Again, it may be unfair to Mr. Hewitt to lump him together with some of the mindless partisans who refuse to recognize the dire straits that the GOP finds itself in three weeks out from the election and viciously attack anyone who they believe isn’t showing sufficient enthusiasm for the coming GOP victory. But for those who hunger for hope and a reasonable analysis, Hewitt supplies the antidote to the Reynoldistas relentless pessimism.

But the question is are both camps doing a disservice to the party? Or, are they both serving a vital purpose to prepare the party faithful for both the election and its aftermath?

A GOP loss will, from a purely political standpoint, be a devastating blow. The inevitable finger pointing and scalp hunting that would follow a Republican debacle on election day would almost certainly encompass the current leadership in the House and open the door to new leadership who, it is hoped, will have learned a thing to two about satisfying the base not to mention how to govern according to conservative principles. In this respect, the Reynoldistas are correct that a loss at the polls would probably make the GOP a better, smarter party.

But is an electoral loss necessary to achieve that goal? The Hewittonians are convinced that party reform could best be accomplished as a majority, albeit a chastened one. Wholesale turnover of the leadership would not be in the cards but that doesn’t mean that meaningful change couldn’t be accomplished in other areas, especially on the issues of pork and earmarks.

In the end, both the pessimists and optimists make it clear that they only have the good of the party at heart. This is all well and good except when it comes to the real world consequences of a Democratic takeover of the House. It is when thinking of what handing the reins of power over to a group of irresponsible, unserious, conspiracy mongers in the Democratic party that one should pause and think very carefully about teaching the GOP “a lesson” about anything.

Criticizing the Administration for their failures in Iraq and the War on Terror is one thing. There are many of us who wish that the War was prosecuted much more vigorously and with more passion. Now imagine a party in power that doesn’t believe we are at war at all, that the War on Terror is a political ploy being used by the White House to win elections and gather power for the executive at the expense of the other branches of government.

It is simply unconscionable to advocate for the defeat of the only party that wishes to engage the enemy in battle, confront rogue states that support terrorism, and do everything that the Constitution allows to keep the homeland safe. We can quibble about details regarding strategy or tactics. But in the end, the election of Democrats would mean a radical change in the way that the War on Terror will be fought. A newly hatched Democratic Congress, driven by their far left net roots who will take full credit for any electoral victory by the party, will disengage from Iraq, end programs that have proven themselves over time to have kept us safe from attack at home, while turning to the United Nations for directions on what to do about Iran and North Korea.

It is perhaps inevitable that there is enormous discontent among conservatives with this Congress and even with the President. But conservative angst about their performance and translating that dissatisfaction into election day pouting absolutely must take a back seat to what the alternative would be. For if the Democrats take control, the blame for such a turn of events will be shared by both Congress itself and those who believe that reforming the party takes precedence over the safety and security of the United States.

Those are the stakes. Now quit your griping and go vote.

Stop the presses! Hold the phone! Can it be true? Are the Republicans poised to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on election day?

A week ago, I would have laughed at any such nonsense. But as the Foley caper fades into the background and the so-called “marginal voters” start to concentrate on the choices they will have on election day, several trends that are favorable to the Republican cause begin to emerge.

I should emphasize that I still believe that the Democrats will take control of the House and will either have nominal control in the Senate or do no worse than tie the Republicans. But my reading of some individual polls in key House races shows that the bleeding from the Foley mess has essentially stopped and that given other factors, the GOP may be able to steal just enough seats to barely maintain control of the House while doing no worse than having a 1-2 seat majority in the Senate.

Providing that no more scandals give the Democrats any additional fodder for their smear campaign.

Indeed, that will be the overriding factor in any putative Republican comeback. The voters are more than ready to give Republicans the boot but are hesitating to do so simply because as they turn to the Democrats for leadership or any kind of organized message, all they hear are crickets chirping. The Dems are letting the GOP self-destruct – something the Republicans appear to be very good at doing. But instead of offering a positive alternative to the scandal-plagued conservatives, all they can do is point their fingers and accuse the GOP of malfeasance. Running on a platform that encompasses the brave message “We are not Republicans” is not inspiring anybody.

This points up the fact that the Democrats have essentially failed in their efforts to nationalize the election. While they would love to make George Bush and the Iraq War the overriding issues in the campaign, the fact is that the internals for most local and regional polls show voters are not buying into the Democratic view of things. Local issues are still trumping national ones by a large margin. And while many Democrats are running ads about the Iraq debacle, few are making it the centerpiece of their campaigns.

This is driving the netnuts wild. They are accusing Democratic candidates of playing it safe by not going on the warpath over Bush, Iraq, the GOP culture of scandal, and other issues that they have brought to the forefront. The Kos Kids and other lefties are railing against candidates who appear to be taking the advice of professional campaign consultants rather than the self appointed experts in the lefty blogosphere. These Democratic challengers have watered down their message and, in the view of the netnuts, squandered an opportunity to sharply delineate their positions on Iraq especially.

Actually, they may have a point. The problem, as the pros could tell the netnuts, is that the American people are ambivalent about what to do with regards to getting out of Iraq. By large majorities, they oppose the war. But at the same time, they realize the danger of simply running away without leaving behind some kind of stable regime that wouldn’t immediately fall under the control of terrorists or terrorist sympathizing elements. Hence, most Democrats are running ads about Iraq that point up the mistakes made and how they want things to get better.

Here in Illinois, even Iraq War vet Tammy Duckworth is finessing the issue, not even mentioning withdrawal in her TV ads against Republican Peter Roskam. In this primarily GOP district (an open seat due to Henry Hyde’s retirement), the race is a toss up at this point. And Roskam still has more than $1.5 million to spend on TV in the final three weeks while Duckworth has half that much.

This brings up another huge Republican advantage going into the final weeks of the election. Both individual GOP candidates and the National Republican Party will be able to bury their Democratic opponents in TV ads from now until November 7. And since many voters get most of their information from this kind of paid advertising (direct mail being another source for voter’s information), being able to outspend their Democratic challengers by 3 or 4 to 1 on TV could tip the scales in many of these close elections.

At the very least, what the GOP cash advantage does is reduce their potential losses. Three weeks ago, there was the very real possibility that the Democrats could take 50 seats or more away from the GOP. This now appears to be a fantasy and was never really possible. More likely, the Democrats will be held to gains under 30 seats (their best case scenario). This would still mean a GOP loss of control in the House but with the caveat that winning back the chamber in 2008 a real possibility.

But what about 2006? By my count, there are six Republican incumbents who have no chance on election day with another 15-17 in deep trouble. By that I mean that they trail their Democratic challengers by more than 8 points 3 weeks out. All the Democrats need to do is capture 9 or 10 of those 17 seats in order for Speaker Pelosi to bang the gavel next January to bring the new Congress to order. And since the Republicans do not lead in any Democratic open districts, the job for Democrats becomes that much easier.

On the other hand, all the GOP has to do is hang on to 7-8 of those 17 seats in order to deny the Democrats control. So in the end, the huge battle for power between the two parties will come down to a handful of races in the midwest and northeast. These are districts that are nominally Republican, went for George Bush in 2004, and where the GOP get out the vote operations may play the decisive role.

Personally, I don’t think it will be that close. I think it likely that the Republicans lose 21-23 seats with some second tier Republicans who are currently ahead losing in the end as marginal voters are attracted to many of this very good crop of candidates fielded by Democrats this time around. But that could change dramatically in the next 10 days or so as even marginal voters come back to the GOP fold following the coming ad blitz.

Hold on to your hats. It will be a rollercoaster ride between now and election day.

Lynne Stewart probably believes she has put another one over on the American government after receiving a mere 28 months for facilitating the activities of terrorists. But the fact is, her career as a “civil rights” attorney has, if anything, proven Ms. Stewart to be far more than an attorney for bombers, killers, and terrorists. Lynne Stewart is a con artist of epic proportions, hurling bunkum at her leftist colleagues and the American public like a carny barker all the while laughing up her sleeve at the stupidity and gullibility of ordinary people.

Her attitude toward the public can best be described in this revealing piece in the Middle East Quarterly:

The defense maintained that the charges against Stewart and her codefendants were an assault on free speech and argued that Stewart enjoyed a lawyer-client privilege. They further argued that the George W. Bush administration hyped evidence against the defendants. Stewart and her defense knew what would play on campuses and in leftist forums across the country. Her website billed the trial as a manifestation of an Orwellian fear that, in the wake of 9-11 and armed with provisions of the Patriot Act, the U.S. Department of Justice was going to criminalize political dissent.

And yet, here’s a quote from Stewart that would seem to make her a liar about her love of free speech:

She described her position in an interview as “a strange amalgam of old-line things and new-line things. I don’t have any problem with Mao or Stalin or the Vietnamese leaders or certainly Fidel locking up people they see as dangerous. Because so often, dissidence has been used by the greater powers to undermine a people’s revolution. The CIA pays a thousand people and cuts them loose, and they will undermine any revolution in the name of freedom of speech.”

For the record, Mao murdered between 20 and 60 million of his own countrymen whose only crime was dissenting from his ruthless dictatorship. And the fact that Castro routinely locks up dissenters doesn’t seem to bother her although her perspective might change a bit after she spends a year or so in the slammer.

Some of the evidence against her reveals a breathtaking contempt for her own word, freely given, not to pass messages from the blind Sheik to his followers:

Stewart and her coconspirators flouted their agreement with the Justice Department and helped the sheikh circumvent the communications ban. According to government recordings of their prison visits, Yousry, who also served as an adjunct lecturer in Middle East studies at York College of the City University of New York, conveyed messages to and from the sheikh while Stewart created what the prosecution called “covering noises.” On some surveillance videos, Stewart could be seen shaking a water jar or tapping on the table while Yousry and the sheikh exchanged communications that were then later disseminated to the sheikh’s followers via the former paralegal. The prosecutor argued, citing a letter written by the U.S. attorney’s office to Stewart after she delivered the message to Reuters, that it was not in the sheikh’s legal rights “to pass messages which, simply put, can get people killed and buildings blown up.” They argued that the case was equivalent to a “jail break,” in which the defendants extracted Abdel Rahman from prison, “not literally, of course, [but] figuratively, in order to make him available to other terrorists.”

One of the most incendiary communications was a message Stewart herself gave to the Reuters news service in June 2000 in which the sheikh announced his withdrawal of support for a cease-fire between the Egyptian Islamic Group and the Egyptian government. The truce had been in place since 1997, just after his followers in Egypt had opened fire on tourists at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, killing 58 foreigners and 4 Egyptians. Subsequently, high-casualty Islamist terrorism resumed in Egypt on October 7, 2004, with a series of bombings that killed 34 in and around the Egyptian Sinai resort of Taba. On July 23, 2005, three bombs exploded in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing at least 64.

The sentencing judge who handed down the 28 months sentence pointed out, in obvious ignorance of the facts, that there was no evidence anyone had been harmed by her actions. This is after the same judge said basically that she’s no better than a terrorist:

But Judge Koeltl said there had been “an irreducible core of extraordinarily severe criminal conduct” in her actions on behalf of the client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind fundamentalist Islamic cleric who is serving a life sentence for plotting to bomb New York City landmarks. Ms. Stewart was convicted on Feb. 10, 2005, of conspiring to provide material aid to terrorism by smuggling the sheik’s messages encouraging violence by his militant followers in Egypt.

So why the light sentence?

While agreeing that Ms. Stewart had flouted the law and deceived the government by breaking prison rules to publicize the sheik’s messages, Judge Koeltl broadly rejected the prosecutors’ portrayal of her as a serial liar and terrorist conspirator who would be a danger to society if she remained free.

Instead, he focused on her past service as a lawyer. “She has represented the poor, the disadvantaged and the unpopular,” Judge Koeltl said, adding that Ms. Stewart had demonstrated “enormous skill and dedication” in her legal work and earned little money from it.

Oh really? The poor bomber? The disadvantaged murderer? The unpopular terrorist?

Here are just a few of Stewart’s cases:

• The 1981 robbery of a Brinks truck that killed two policemen and a guard carried out by radical leftists. The killer’s defense? Stewart and her colleagues described the prosecution as “an effort by the government to prosecute political activists who rob from the rich in order to give to the poor.” To this day, several of the defendants refuse to say they did anything wrong or apologize for the murders. One of the perpetrators, Susan Rosenberg, had her sentence commuted by Bill Clinton as he was leaving office.

• Defended Luc Levasseur of the United Freedom Front, a domestic terrorist group that bombed the US Capitol in 1983 as well as several other targets.

• Defended Sunni Ali, a member of the Black Liberation Army, a violent offshoot of the Black Panthers, who was accused of several bombings. The Fraternal Order of Police says the BLA is responsible for the murder of 13 police officers. Also participated in the Brinks robbery.

• Defended two recent cop killers.

Do we see a pattern? It seems that Stewart has a soft spot in her heart for cop killers. Now even cop killers deserve the best defense our system can give them. But her defense of these men always centers on the fact that they were acting in self defense given the known “brutality” of the police. And she asks the jury to dismiss her client’s actions on the grounds that they are fomenting revolution and are therefore exempt from “unjust laws.”

What is her attitude toward jihadists like the Shiek? The government caught Stewart’s true feelings on tape:

In May of 2000, according to the prosecution, tapes indicate that Yousry told the sheikh and Stewart that the Abu Sayyaf group had kidnapped tourists in the Philippines and was threatening to kill them if the sheikh and Ramzi Yousef were not released. Stewart commented, “Good for them,” although she said that while she believed that Abu Sayyaf would not succeed in winning Abdel Rahman’s release, its efforts were nonetheless “very, very crucial,” since the demand would raise his profile among jihadists. Even bin Laden, a self-professed admirer of the sheikh, had considered hijacking airplanes to free the sheikh and Yousef. In September 2000, the Al-Qaeda leader reiterated his threat to wage jihad on the sheikh’s behalf.

Stewart also endorsed the sheikh’s ghostwritten fatwa, calling for the murder of Jews and Americans. When Sattar told Stewart that Ramsey Clark had concerns about the fatwa, she responded, “Does he really think that the American government can completely put this man in an iron box and cut him off from the whole world?”

When asked about 9-11, Stewart told The New York Times that she thought the attacks were a predictable response to U.S. aggression. “I’m pretty inured to the notion that in a war or in an armed struggle, people die,” she said. “They’re in the wrong place; they’re in a nightclub in Israel; they’re at a stock market in London; they’re in the Algerian outback—whatever it is, people die.” Citing the U.S. use of a nuclear weapon against Hiroshima and the World War II firebombing of Dresden, she added, “So I have a lot of trouble figuring out why that is wrong, especially when people are sort of placed in a position of having no other way.”

Then, after thumbing her nose at the government for so long, when it comes time for her to face the consequences of her conscious and deliberate actions, she chickens out and throws herself on the mercy of the court like any common cowardly criminal:

In a brief statement to the judge before the sentence, Ms. Stewart, shaking and barely suppressing tears, refrained from political comment or discussion of her case, but noted that she would never be permitted to practice law again.

“The end of my career is truly like a sword in my side,” she said. “I don’t want to be in prison,” she pleaded. “Permit me to live in the world and live out my life, productively, lovingly, righteously.”

Ms. Stewart’s lawyers, citing her recent bout of breast cancer, had asked the judge not to give her any prison time.

The fact that she didn’t use her statement to further her goal of revolution only shows her to be the craven opportunist she has always been. This is a hero of the left? This God forsaken, broken down old side show barker elicits encomiums of praise and poetic tributes from radicals?

Almost as cowardly as Stewart was the judge who praised Stewart for her past work while releasing her on bail pending appeal because he believes that there is a chance that the verdict will actually be reversed.

Let’s hope the appeals court has a lot more gumption than this Clinton appointed judge. Otherwise, Stewart may yet walk out of court a free woman.