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What fear is being mongered, Obama?

RONALD Reagan, a favorite president of many, had his own favorite president: Calvin Coolidge.

Why would the Great Communicator like "Silent Cal?"

He took naps in the afternoon, Reagan said.

There is much to be said about the virtues of restraint.

Coolidge could have used the afternoons to conjure up whole new bureaucracies to unleash upon the people, but Cal would rather nap.

Reagan had a better reason to admire Coolidge -- photo ops. No one before or since could stage a photo op quite like the 30th president of the United States.

A favorite was the dour-faced president in black business suit adorned with an Indian headdress.

Indians liked Cal because he signed a law granting them full citizenship. And so they made him a full-fledged Sioux chief.

He stood in his business suit in this beautiful, feathered headdress that flowed regally to the ground. He looked so darned goofy that it is difficult not to like the guy.

Earlier this year, Fred Thompson demurred when it came to making similar poses. He said he doesn't do funny hats.

At the time, I agreed. It's not presidential.

But after seeing candidates don the cheesehead in an attempt to win votes in Wisconsin, I realized the error of my way.

Funny hats are a presidential way to look like you are not overly serious about the job.

It is an important job, true. But once in a while, a president has to just kick back, be a regular person, and enjoy the moment.

Funny hats are a good way to bond with people. The late A. James Manchin probably had the state's largest collection of funny hats -- helmets given to him from fire departments, etc.

It was hard not to like him.

Which brings me to the photograph of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois wearing a turban while on a trip to Africa a couple of years ago.

Someone dusted the photo off this week and sent it to Matt Drudge, who posted it at the Drudge Report on Monday morning, thus guaranteeing its place as the first story of the week.

Drudge said it came from supporters of Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. That would fit neatly into the scenario spun by the New York Times of a campaign willing to throw the kitchen sink at Obama.

Then again, the Times told us last week that Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona had an affair with a buxom blond lobbyist without offering any evidence of that, so I do not know how much credence to give this kitchen sink scenario.

I do know the Clinton camp denied sending the photo to Drudge, noting that, hell, Hillary has gone native in overseas trips, including one to India in which she and daughter Chelsea rode an elephant.

Somewhere Silent Cal is envious.

I also know that Obama's camp overreacted, with his campaign manager telling reporters in a conference call that this is "the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party in this election.

"This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it's exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world."

A general who was on the trip was trotted out to talk to reporters, as was a foreign policy advisor. Elephant guns for a gnat.

A friendly gnat at that.

What fear exactly was mongered here?

That the 44th president of the United States might go to Africa and dance?

Don't worry. The 43rd president just did.

It was a good photo op.

If Obama's skin is this thin, maybe he ought to leave the presidency to the grownups.

A Brit worries about an American monarchy

Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of Hillary Clinton dismissing talk about her husband having an affair with an unpaid intern as the imaginings of “a vast right-wing conspiracy.”

Of course, many are the 10th year anniversaries this year.

There is the 10th anniversary of his flat-out denial.

There is the 10th anniversary of his retraction.

There is the 10th anniversary of his impeachment.

People know I think very lowly of both of them. But that does not matter. I figure my vote will be canceled 100,000 times or so in November.

Hillary will be the 44th president, unless Bush dies before his term expires.

But the funny thing about American elections is that they no longer end at the water’s edge.

Everybody seems to be paying attention.

And reading some of the accounts by foreign journalists should give American voters pause.

Damien Lanigan of the London Daily Telegraph wrote this week, “It’s astonishing to me that liberals still venerate Clinton. I can only assume that they admire his political success: he was the first representative of his party since FDR to win a second Presidential term.

“But his record of achievement in those two terms is appallingly slender.

“Apart from Welfare Reform, which most Dems opposed anyway, his Presidency was divided pretty much equally between legislative logjam caused by his narcissistic faith in his wife’s pipe dreams and impeachment efforts caused by his vile personal pathologies.”

Lanigan may be on to something, especially when he mentions “the soft bigotry of the Defense of Marriage Act” and Marc Rich, the billionaire international fugitive from justice that Bill pardoned on his last day in office -- after Rich’s ex-wife made a sizeable donation to the Clinton library.

I wonder how the workers at the aluminum plant in Ravenswood feel about having their former owner pardoned like that.

Lanigan nailed the situation, when he wrote, “Clinton’s status is a consequence of the ‘son of a bitch’ philosophy: the guy may be a sexually predatory congenital liar, but he’s OUR sexually predatory congenital liar.”

Then there is Gerard Baker of the Times of London, who complained about the establishment of an American monarchy.

“If anyone ever doubted that the Hillary Clinton campaign was nothing less than a full-scale restoration of a political dynasty, the past two weeks will have surely disabused them,” Baker wrote.

The problem is not so much the familial relationship, but the viciousness with which Bill Clinton wields his position as an ex-president.

“The spectacle has been unprecedented. When George W.Bush ran for president in 2000, his father, former President George H.W.Bush, who had himself been mauled by the Clintons in 1992, pointedly stayed out of the campaign.

“That might simply owe more to better breeding in the Brahmin Bushes from New England than you find in the dysfunctional family of street-brawling strivers from Arkansas.

“But it also true proof of how much is at stake for both Clintons this time,” wrote Baker.

Now let me be the first to say that I want an aggressive president.

As much as I agreed with Fred Thompson on most things (I overlooked his opposition to gay marriage) I was glad when he finally aborted his somnambulistic campaign. Men walking to the electric chair show more enthusiasm than he did.

But there is a lot to be said for decency.

Politically, she will say anything and do little, just like he did.
She says she has been an agent of change for 35 years.

What was she doing in 1973? She was an attorney in the Watergate hearings. For the Republicans.
In the Senate, she voted for the war that she now opposes.

She voted for the No Child Left Behind Act but now says it is a broken promise.
She voted for a bankruptcy reform bill in 2001 -- only to say at a debate in 2008 that she was glad it failed.

Just what has she accomplished in her life that she is proud of?

I mean besides getting herself and her husband elected over and over again and making a lot of money.

Oh well, the American people will decide for themselves whether they want to go through another four years of this soap opera from Little Rock.

I just want everyone to know that the stakes are much higher in 2008 than they were in 1992.

Bush repaired the damage to America

ON June 27, Sen. Hillary Clinton spoke at the Center for a New American Security.

"We can repair the damage that has been done to our security and our standing over these past six years. We can rebuild our alliances and restore our moral authority, and reestablish our leadership in the world. And by doing so, we can forge a new American security for this new century," Mrs. Clinton said.

What in the devil was the woman talking about?

The idea that our allies abandoned us is more Clintonian spin.

Let's look at the facts. In the past year, Canada elected a conservative prime minister, who of course is pro-American.

Britain replaced the pro-American Tony Blair with the pro-American Gordon Brown.

And South Korea, which had an anti-American streak a mile wide in 2002, elected the retired head of Hyundai, Lee Myung-bak, as its president. He's pro-American as well.

Mrs. Clinton's ridiculous statement came less than six weeks after France elected as its president Nicolas Sarkozy, who calls himself - unabashedly - L'Americain.

Until last year, I never imagined that there would be a day when the French elected as their president the most pro-American Frenchman since LaFayette.

L'Americain won 53 percent of the vote. That is a higher percentage than any Democratic presidential candidate has received since Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964.

In fact, only one Democratic candidate in the last 40 years received a majority of the popular vote: Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The reason for Democratic minority votes is Democrats continue to fail the security test.

Bush gets it.

So do the allies.

True, except for England and Australia, no major ally signed on for Iraq.

Instead, they eased the burden in Afghanistan instead. Roughly half the allied troops in Afghanistan are from our NATO allies.

NATO was set up to protect Europe. Under George Bush's leadership, it ventured into Asia.

Those allies freed up 56,000 American GIs for deployment elsewhere. The surge, which may have won the war in Iraq, would have been impossible without that commitment.

The new Australian government just re-upped for another two years, as have the Dutch and the Canadians.

Our allies know that jihadists pose the biggest threat to the world. They rally behind America, knowing that we will bear any burden and pay any price for freedom.

As a self-described Goldwater girl, surely the senator heard him say:

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"

To be sure, many are the countries that liked the Clinton administration and who now despise the Bush administration.

Some of their names are Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.

Her husband's idea of international relations was to send a 6-year-old boy kicking and screaming back to Cuba.

Her husband saw the Pentagon as a safe landing for his girlfriend, Monica Lewinsky. That was where she met Linda Tripp.

Sen. Clinton touts her experience.

That experience includes the disaster in Mogadishu and the failure to respond to the attack on the USS Cole.

Unless she learned something from those poor decisions, her experience is meaningless.

Everyone says in public that they don't like having America as the lone superpower and that America should not be the world's cop.

But in their hearts, they thank God for America.

The world President Bush inherited from Mrs. Clinton's husband was far less secure, as we learned on Sept. 11, 2001.

There has been no successful attack on us since. Maybe it is luck.

Likely not.

Thanks to a surge that she did not support, Iraq likely will be on its own on Jan. 20, 2009.

Overthrowing Saddam Hussein had many benefits.

It ended once and for all the threats from Iraq.

It convinced Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions in 2003 (although Iran may have resumed).

It ended sponsorship of terrorist attacks on Israel.

It convinced Libya that maybe now is not a good time to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The world still has its problems.

But compared to the mess Bush received from the first President Clinton, things are better.

Much better.

VLWC is out to get Hillary

HILARY is a bright, lovely and talented young woman who achieved professional success without having to rely much on her husband or any man.

Two-time Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank, that is.

Hillary Clinton?

Well, here is what one columnist wrote this week:

"The underlying rationale for her campaign is that she is owed. Owed for moving to Arkansas and giving up the name Rodham, owed for pretending to care about place settings and menus when she held the unappetizing title of first lady, owed for enduring one humiliation after another at the hands of her husband."

Those are the words of Maureen Dowd, who pens for the standard-bearer of modern liberalism, the New York Times.

When accusations — all of them true — came out about her husband's philandering, Mrs. Clinton blew off the revelations as the imaginings of some vast right-wing conspiracy.

As she runs for president, Mrs. Clinton needs to keep an eye out for that vast left-wing conspiracy.

It is not just potshots. Ari Berman of "The Nation" magazine examined her campaign donors in a piece called "Hillary Inc." in June.

"Not only is Hillary more reliant on large donations and corporate money than her Democratic rivals, but advisers in her inner circle are closely affiliated with unionbusters, GOP operatives, conservative media and other Democratic Party antagonists," Berman wrote.

"It's not exactly an advertisement for the working-class hero, or a picture her campaign freely displays. Her lengthy support for the Iraq War is Clinton's biggest liability in Democratic primary circles.

"But her ties to corporate America say as much, if not more, about what she values and cast doubt on her ability and willingness to fight for the progressive policies she claims to champion."

Mind you, this report came out three months before revelations by the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times that one of the top fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton is the fugitive from justice, Norman Hsu.

Berman pointed out why many liberals parted company with her at least in the nomination process.

"The conservative caricature that Hillary is to the left of her husband is a myth," he wrote. "She, like Bill, talks a good game. She's aggressively courted organized labor and distanced herself from policies like NAFTA."

I am amused by the support from the gay community for Mrs. Clinton when it was her husband (and a Democratic Congress) that codified the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military.

The "for the children" crowd fawns over her, though it was her husband who signed welfare reform into law. That was his major domestic achievement.

Then there is Joe Klein of Time magazine, author of the "Primary Colors" novel about Bill Clinton's run for the presidency in 1992.

"The Clinton line in 1992 was, Buy one, get one free," Klein wrote recently. "We've already had that co-presidency — for its full, constitutional eight years.

"What's more, I suspect there would be innate and appropriate populist resistance to this slouch toward monarchal democracy. There is something fundamentally un-American—and very European — about the Clintons and the Bushes trading the office every eight years, with stale, familiar corps of retainers, supporters and enemies.

"Bill Clinton was a good president. Hillary Clinton is a good senator. But enough already."

The first independent anti-Hillary ad came not from the right but from the left. Glenn Hurowitz, who had worked for MoveOn in 2004, formed the group "Democratic Courage," which launched its anti-Hillary ad in October.

"I'm definitely not a Hillary hater," Hurowitz told Ben Smith of Politico. "I think there are other candidates who are better for the progressive movement."

He did go on to say, however: "Most of the people involved in our PAC will be happy to support her if she does become the nominee."

That is likely true for most liberals. They may not like her, but they like Republicans even less.

Still, it is a long way until November. It seems to me that a Clinton should easily scamper to the Democratic National Convention untouched.

Instead, she seems to be behind the party's vice presidential candidate from the last time out and a fellow just four years removed from the Illinois legislature.

As the kids say, what's up with that?

Ignoring the American success in Iraq

TIME magazine's selection of Vladimir Putin as person of the year was a joke. The real choice should have been between Gen. David Petraeus or President Bush.

Does one credit the person who actually gets the job done or the boss who risks his all in trusting that the employee will get the job done?

Given his overall humility, I'd say Bush would agree that Petraeus earned the title.

A year ago, the situation in Iraq looked hopeless. Democrats had taken control of both houses of Congress with an aim of aborting the mission. Bob Novak opened the year with an ominous warning that Republican senators were reluctant to support the surge in troop strength.

But Petraeus came up with the plan and the White House sold it to Congress.

In the first half of the year, stories of Iraq filled the evening news and front pages. In April, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada declared the surge a failure and the war lost.

Which was odd since the surge did not actually begin until June.

Hillary Clinton demanded that Bush have all our troops out of Iraq by the time Her Presidency began on Jan. 20, 2009.

Then a funny thing happened. The increased American commitment, however temporary, gave Iraqis enough time to get their act together, turn on al-Qaida, and begin the task of policing themselves.

In July, two Washington Post reporters asked the No. 3 Democrat in the House, James Clyburn of South Carolina, what would happen if Petraeus gave a positive report to Congress in September.

Clyburn's response was the quote of the year.

"I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us," Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."

The Surge was a problem for Democrats.

By Labor Day, the success of the surge was evident, so much so that on the eve of his testimony to Congress, MoveOn.org ran the infamous "General Petraeus-General Betray Us" ad.

The biggest sign of success, though, was the sudden drop in the coverage of the war. Our soldiers fought the terrorists and worked with the locals to end the insurgency.

But war coverage dropped.

It's like ignoring D-Day.

In 2006, America's editors overwhelmingly named the Iraq War as the top story in a survey by the Associated Press. The war was placed ahead of even the Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress.

This year, editors dropped the war to third behind the Virginia Tech shootings and the failure of deadbeats to pay their mortgages.

Third.

No one should expect the American press to cover only the American side of the war. Ernie Pyle died a long time ago.

But neither should the press root against our soldiers or ignore their victories.

To be sure, there is violence yet to come in this war. And counter-insurgencies, which is what the surge is, can collapse.

But with Iraqi officials now negotiating with the Pentagon over how many American troops will remain there in the postwar period - much like the units we maintain in Germany, Italy, Japan and South Korea - the outcome is obvious.

America's victory in Iraq is the No. 1 story in 2007.

That most editors in America rank it No. 3 is very sad - and very telling

Monica turned journalism inside out

THE Second Amendment provides a good test of the American politician. If a candidate is not going to trust the people with guns, why should we trust said candidate with the government?

The equivalent test for journalists will be taken next month as the press marks the 10th anniversary of the breaking of the Monica Lewinsky story.

How a newspaper or columnist describes this event tells a lot about how that newspaper or columnist views the audience.

I am not talking about whether it is described as presidential perjury or a sex scandal. That is a right-left spin thing that now has little relevance.

I mean how the story was broken - by Matt Drudge through his drudgereport.com.

The story did not break in "Newsweek," even though its reporter, Michael Isikoff, had the goods. His editors sat on his story.

Whoever shopped the story to Isikoff, then shopped it to Drudge, who posted it online. This made the Internet buzz, as people debated the subject in AOL chat rooms.

The Washington Post broke the story in the print media on Jan. 21, 1998.

On Jan. 26, 1998, President Bill Clinton wagged his finger and told a press conference: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

Thus began one of the most entertaining years in American politics.

The lasting effect is what the scandal (readers may choose the adjective) did to the American press corps.

Overnight, a then-31-year-old former gift-shop clerk at CBS became the most important man in American journalism.

His Internet site averaged 85,000 unique visitors a day in 1997.

On Monday, 18.3 million people visited his site. That is more than all the people who watched ABC, CBS and NBC news combined that night.

Not since the famous Walter Winchell has a gossip held as much sway in America.

A story linked by Drudgereport can send so many visitors to a site that its computer server cannot handle the traffic.

Now here is the test for readers as they read in the next month rehashes of the Lewinsky scandal: Does the newspaper or columnist view the emergence of Drudge and the Internet as a good thing or bad?

The whiners will complain that no one controls the Internet and that a lot of the information is inaccurate.

Yes. And people soon learn which sites to trust. As bloggers point out, Jayson Blair worked for the New York Times, not Lucianne.com.

Another complaint is there is too much celebrity news now, as if no one paid attention to the trials involving Fatty Arbuckle, Gloria Vanderbilt and Lana Turner's daughter.

The 20th century had at least a dozen trials of the century.

Then there is the complaint that Drudge is a conservative.

But he seldom writes. He links. And the things he links to appear in liberal publications as well as conservative ones as well as middle-of-the-road sites.

He did not become popular by suppressing the news. That seems to be the job of the editors at Newsweek.

The people have chosen Drudge instead. Now news outlets follow his lead.

A good example came last weekend. On my Daily Mail blog, I posted a picture of Hillary Clinton campaigning in New Hampshire.

She looked cold, old and tired.

No one paid attention.

On Monday morning, Drudge posted it on his site. The photo became the buzz on the Internet.

Of course Rush Limbaugh commented on it. But so did David Nason of The Australian newspaper (that's its title).

More than a century ago, E.W. Scripps adopted as the motto for his chain of newspapers, "Give light and people will find their way."

The only thing that has changed in the 130 years since he wrote that is the size and the shape of the lamp.

Just as politicians should trust the people with guns, we in the newspaper game should trust the people with the facts.

That is the test readers should apply when reading about this 10th anniversary.

How did Lee Iacocca put it? Either lead, follow or get out of the way.

Thank you, Iowa and New Hampshire

POLITICAL science is to science what a lightning bug is to lightning. Both bear a rather dim resemblance to the real thing.

But political science has its guinea pigs, too.

Witness Iowa and New Hampshire. They share in common harsh winters. And both are representative of their regions, respectively, New England and the Midwest.

And of course both have early presidential nomination processes, which attract national attention.

There but for the grace of Gallup go we. I am sure the attention that West Virginia received in 1960 was fun - all those Kennedys - but once is enough.

Who wants to have to open the door on a cold Saturday morning to a smiling candidate and an accompanying army of TV news crews?

The only thing that would make it worth answering the door is the knowledge that it is even worse for the smiling candidate.

The New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses are humbling experiences that force the next president of the United States to spend some time with and learn something about the people he or she will try to lead.

The candidates may not walk a mile in the taxpayer's shoes, but they will at least see those shoes.

I especially like the pig farm visits in Iowa. So far, no candidate has skidded in pig droppings, but all of them do have to smell the stench.

The dairy farms of New Hampshire are equally aromatic.

Reporters for national publications call this "retail politics." Candidates cannot hide behind batteries of TV commercials. They have to go out and press the flesh.

While some complain that this has been a long campaign, a year is one-fifth of a presidency. The 43 presidents have averaged five years in office over the first 218 years of this Republic.

If you cannot handle a year of campaigning, you cannot handle five years of being president.

The past year has tired some, invigorated others, and showed the shrewdness of waiting, in Fred Thompson's case, until September to enter the sweepstakes.

Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani looked like shoo-ins in February.

Now, not so much.

Giuliani has failed to rally skeptical Republicans. Disclosures that he used taxpayer money to finance trysts with his third wife when she was his mistress do not play well.

Mrs. Clinton has been, as the British say, too clever by half.

She has planted questions at her town hall meetings and at the opposition's debates, and she got caught.

Her campaign's latest attempt to smear Barack Obama was clumsy, at best.

It also revealed how the Clinton mind works.

Here was the statement about Obama from campaign operative Billy Shaheen: "The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight, and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use."

How Clintonian. He threw a rock at an opponent and blamed a third party.

The line backfired, and Shaheen resigned from Team Clinton, which denied that he acted on its behalf.

It reminded me of that line from the "Mission: Impossible" TV show: "As always, should you, or any of your MI Force, be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of the matter."

On the other hand, John Edwards is hanging in there - so well that he was hit with a love-child accusation this week.

The long presidential season is like watching close-ups on HDTV. The camera exposes many flaws.

The press also is tested.

Carolyn Washburn, editor of the Des Moines Register, monitored the Iowa debates. Reviewers divided along two lines, those who thought she acted like a schoolmarm and those who thought she was Nurse Ratchet from "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."

Neither description was meant as a compliment.

Conventional wisdom is that we should not let two states decide who will be the next president.

They won't. Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton all lost the Iowa caucuses the year they were elected.

But Iowa and New Hampshire winnow the field. With 18 candidates running this year, that is a great service to the rest of the nation.

And it is entertaining as well.

Carbon offsets and other indulgences

OVER the years, the Nobel Peace Prize has honored many religious leaders. The Dalai Lama, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa come to mind.

This year the prize was shared by Al Gore, an apostle of the Gaia religion, which worships the Earth.

It is an apocalyptic religion that preaches that the world will be destroyed by man's materialism. Only if we give up our SUVs and everything else that gives us life's pleasures can we be saved.

Even bottled water is now considered to be a sinful product.

I do not mean to make fun of another man's religion. I like religions. Usually they come with nice songs, tranquil chapels and colorfully garbed priests. Religion is a good way of reminding the lofty that they are puny, as well as telling the lonely they are not alone.

When people say religion is the opiate of the masses, I observe that opiates heal pain.

As for jailhouse conversions, I like to think Jesus spends his time in the lonelier corners of the world - nursing homes, prisons and orphanages.

As for churches being filled with nothing but hypocrites, well, that is the human condition.

Besides, where else do hypocrites have to go on Sunday morning?

Which brings me to Al Gore. It is difficult to take his sermons on the coming doom seriously when his mansion in Tennessee consumes 10 times the electricity of an ordinary home.

The irony is that President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, uses 25 percent less electricity than normal thanks to its environmentally friendly design. At 4,000 square feet, the Bush home is hardly small.

Rather than lead by example, Gore and other millionaire celebrities engage in carbon offsets. They pay for the planting of a tree and presto, the carbon dioxide from their jets is forgiven.

I'm not buying it, but then since I fail to buy into the whole global warming hysteria, the point is moot. As long as the trees they are planting are somewhere where overforestation won't destroy the local habitat, I say let them.

In medieval times, the Catholic church issued letters of indulgence that mitigated the punishment for sins. A sinner had to show remorse, pray, and perform what we would now call community service, which could be as simple as giving alms to the church.

The wages of sin were not just a metaphor.

And the theology is not necessarily incorrect. If you believe the Lord is forgiving, then any sin can be forgiven.

I am not mocking Al Gore. His religion is between him and God.

But I am amused by how religion is being invented again.

It is generally harmless. As long as they don't proselytize too strenuously and avoid serving Kool-Aid, they will do just fine - no matter how lousy their science is.

We invade Iraq and Iran gives up WMD

THE nation's spies re-assessed the Iran situation. Instead of Iran being on the verge of splitting the atom - as everyone in the world assumed - Iran gave it up in 2003.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., immediately seized upon this as an example of President Bush's incompetence, blah, blah, blah.

Uh, no.

If anything this shows that Bush was right, Byrd wrong.

What happened in 2003?

The Iraq war.

President Bush decided not to take the chance that Saddam Hussein had turned Iraq into an armory of weapons of mass destruction. Byrd had voted against the war in part because he thought Hussein would use his warehouses of chemical weapons against our troops.

When American soldiers got there, thank God, they found no WMD.

The intelligence community had gotten it wrong.

Maybe the intelligence community has it wrong again on Iran.

But we do know that shortly after allied troops took over Baghdad, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi volunteered to give up his programs to develop WMD.

Perhaps Iran followed suit.

Just remember, in 2005 these same intelligence experts said Iran was working on a nuclear program.

I notice that many of those who swear this report is gospel pooh-poohed the earlier report.

It is folly on Byrd's part to credit the international community with Iran backing down.

The only thing that changed in 2003 was that we put 100,000-plus troops in the nation to the west of Iran. This was on top of the troops we placed in the nation north of Iran.

It did not take a genius to figure out who might be next.

And just to make sure everyone was clear about this, President Bush mentioned the Axis of Evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Then he invaded the first.

Frankly, I am tired of Byrd's partisan games. I am tired of the entire Democratic Party's games. In April, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid declared that military victory was impossible in Iraq.

Six months later, Gen. David Petraeus and 170,000 troops proved Reid wrong. Totally. Completely.

And yet Reid continues to lead the Democratic Party in the Senate.

The real danger to the world is not a strong commander-in-chief. It is a weak one. A mealy-mouthed one. One who worries more about world opinion than he does about the world's security.

Bill Clinton ticked me off about a number of things. But he did oversee the balancing of the budget and the end of welfare as we know it. In many ways, he completed the tasks that President Reagan began.

And Clinton was right about Kosovo. I was wrong. True, its fate remains in the air even eight years after. But at least the slaughter of Muslims has ended.

And this President Bush has done quite a few things that I dislike. Signing the McCain-Feingold Act into law was as cynical and loathsome an action as any I have seen conducted at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Bush did so knowing it abridged free speech.

But in standing up to tyranny, both Clinton and now Bush were on the side of the angels.

I am told that the odds are against the Republicans stopping the Democrats next year from retaining control of Congress and gaining control of the White House. This, I am told, is the price of the Iraq war.

If so, it is a small price to pay. President Truman and his party paid the same price for the liberation of South Korea in 1952.

Perhaps Byrd has forgotten.

I hope our intelligence community is right about Iran giving up its nuclear program in 2003. It will be one more side benefit of overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

An explanation

I moved my blog. If you are looking for Carnegie-Mellon University's 2nd most informative blog, it is here: DON SURBER.

Earmarks are not just for re-election

WHEN she took over as speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi said she would "drain the swamp" of political corruption. Then she proceeded to push to have her old friend Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., to be her right-hand man.

But Democrats balked. After all, Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal.

Still Murtha remains the leader of what can only be described as Earmarks Inc., a string of congressmen who have figured out how to use earmarks to benefit their campaigns and their families.

Earmarks are special projects that a lone congressman or senator inserts into the budget. They must be funded. Earmarks fund U.S. 35, but they also can force the military to buy aircraft because the factory is in a congressman's back yard.

There is a disturbing pattern of lobbyists raising money for congressmen who then steer earmarks to the clients of the lobbyists.

And some of those clients also are set up by the congressmen.

For example, Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., set up five tax-exempt groups in West Virginia, including one headed by a former staff member.

Then Mollohan steered money to those groups. The FBI looked into those connections.

Mollohan is not alone.

The Scranton Times-Tribune reported that Democratic Congressman Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania steered $10 million to a company headed by four nephews and his daughter.

Kanjorski heads the House Subcommittee on Economic Growth and Credit Formation. The irony is that even with $10 million in earmarked contracts, the family business folded.

Earmarks aren't the only problem.

The money lobbyists give to congressional campaigns often winds up in the pockets of the candidates' relatives.

The Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington combed through congressional election records and found 96 of the 435 House members used campaign money "to financially benefit their family members."

For example, Republican Congressman Chris Cannon of Utah put six of his eight children on his campaign payroll.

Much of today's campaign money comes from lobbyists and their clients who seek earmarks. Murtha may not have invented this, but he perfected it.

Under Murtha in the 1980s, Paul Magliocchetti was the senior staffer on the Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense.

Magliocchetti left to form the PMA Group.

For the 2006 election, PMA and its clients were 11 of Murtha's top 20 contributors, giving him a total of $274,649.

In fact, PMA and its clients contributed more than $1.3 million to the re-elections of Murtha and two other committee chairmen. Paul Singer of Roll Call reported that those PMA clients received a total of $100 million in government contracts this year.

For the 2008 race, PMA is expanding its horizons. In March, the brother of House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, set up a political action committee.

Singer reported on Monday that lo and behold, PMA and its clients quickly kicked in $50,000.

Singer noted that many of these clients also donate heavily to Murtha and Mollohan.

I often disagree with Sen. Robert C. Byrd. But I do admire that after 2,000 years -- or however long he has served in the Senate -- he ranks 81st among the 100 senators when it comes to personal wealth.

He is not in it for the money. Vanity perhaps, but he takes the high road.

And Pelosi cannot drain the swamp, not when nearly a quarter of the members of the House have relatives on their re-election committees.

The Bush administration has done a stellar job in going after the crooks. Republican Duke Cunningham's eight-year prison sentence proves that.

In its final year, the Bush administration should not let up.

Is cutting health spending a good idea?

UNDER a Democratic president, look for Democrats to revive their efforts to have the government take over the health insurance business.

This is scary. Putting my life in the hands of a private insurance bureaucracy is bad enough.

Putting my life in the hands of the government bureaucracy is worse. I keep thinking of Hurricane Katrina.

The main selling point is that the government somehow will do the job cheaper.

Is my health care really a place I want to scrimp? It is not like I can take the money with me.

A new report by Consumer Reports is worrisome. The publication listed the 10 most "overused" medical procedures.

No. 3 was prostate cancer surgery.

The magazine's press release said: "Prostate cancer surgery can cost $17,000 or more and is often done without adequate discussion of the alternatives or the high risk of incontinence or impotence."

Obviously, surgery is not always the answer, but I want the doctor erring on the side of saving my life.

The five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is now 99 percent in the United States vs. 77 percent in Europe, Lancet Oncology magazine reported this month.

Much of that is attributable to early detection. But can we discount the effectiveness of those $17,000 surgeries?

Of course, we men are disposable after 50.

Maybe the government could save a buck or two by reducing the paperwork. But let's not go European with long lines and restrictions on what treatments are available.

America leads the world in spending on health care. Those caring, compassionate liberals say that it costs too much.

America also leads the world in spending on education. When was the last time someone said that education costs too much?


* * *
Proponents of having the government run health care (he who pays the piper calls the tune) point out the life expectancy of Americans is shorter than that of nations with socialized medicine.

This is their proof of the poor quality of American health care. They ignore genetics, diet and exercise.

And smoking.

I found this on the Internet and it was amusing: A table on the percentage of men who smoke and the life expectancy for men by nation. It used 1994 figures.

Iceland had the highest life expectancy for men despite the fact that 31 percent of its men smoke.

Japan was second despite a 59 percent rate of smoking among men.

Costa Rica was third despite 35 percent of its men smoking.

The United States finished well behind the top 15 in life expectancy. Only 28 percent of American men smoked.

With the exception of Sweden, every single one of the top 15 nations for life expectancy had a higher smoking rate for men.

Using the cockamamie logic of the proponents of socialized medicine, Americans would live longer if more of them smoked. Instead of taxing cigarettes, smokers should get a subsidy.


* * *
The Democrats trotted out a 12-year-old boy last weekend to blast President Bush's veto of an expensive expansion of government health insurance.

The boy was the victim of a terrible car crash three years ago. He said he might not be alive if not for government-run health insurance.

Democrats should be ashamed. They know better. The hospital could not deny the child treatment. The only question was who paid afterward.

Instead of the hospital writing it off as charity care, the government paid.

We have the best medical system in the world. I am tired of hearing power-hungry politicians put it down.

I offer as proof Lancet Oncology's report this month that the five-year survival rate for cancer in Europe is 47 percent for men and 56 percent for women.

In America, those rates are 66 percent and 63 percent respectively.

And Consumer Reports editors should note that one of the main reasons for a higher survival rate is a 99 percent survival rate for prostate cancer.

Is prostate cancer surgery overused? Perhaps. But I do not wish to roll the dice should I need such treatment.

The U.S. blew a 40-year lead in space

EVERY week that West Virginia University plays football, managing editor Bob Kelly makes the same doom-and-gloom prediction: They're going to lose.

If you cut Bob Kelly, you would discover rivers of old Gold and Blue in his veins.

Which is why Bob Kelly prepares for the worst every week.

In 1970, WVU took a 35-8 lead into halftime in Pittsburgh. WVU lost 36-35. The Mountaineers did not record so much as a first down in the second half.

The American space program did the same thing.

On July 20, 1969, the United States landed two men on the moon: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Having achieved the pinnacle of 20th century, America decided to gaze at its navel. The argument was that instead of "wasting" millions on the space program, we ought to be spending more money "fixing" the problems here on earth.

We wound up feeding billions if not trillions into the social justice bureaucracy. Instead of helping people out of poverty, we created the idle poor, a rather large segment of people who lived on the dole in air-conditioned public housing and sent their children to school for free lunches.

About a decade into this, crack cocaine began showing up in poor neighborhoods. Gangs turned public housing into shooting ranges.

While some people said it was rich white folks who were buying drugs in poor neighborhoods, from what little I know of economics, I would say there was plenty of demand in the poor neighborhoods.

Like fast-food joints, drug dealers set up shop where the customers are.

Throwing money at the problem of poverty made it worse. Crime went up. School graduation rates went down.

Our track record on the War on Poverty makes Iraq look successful.

The United States wound up with about the same rate of poverty as when it began. The most notable difference is that instead of having skinny malnourished poor kids, we now have fat malnourished poor kids.

The irony is the space program's technological advances were one reason America had an economic edge in the world. That edge helps keep the middle class growing.

Now China, India, Japan and even Europe are discussing space programs. China could land a man on the moon in 2009, the 40th anniversary of the Eagle landing there.

Why does this conjure up memories of the story of the tortoise and the hare?

But hey, life is not a football game.

America can still dominate space, if only we had leaders who don't stop thinking about tomorrow.


* * *
Last week I fell for an Internet rumor concerning the fate of a white couple who were murdered in Tennessee. The four suspects are black men. The untrue rumor exaggerated what was done to the couple.

Still, I stand by my opposition to hate crimes legislation. All crimes of violence are hate crimes.

I understand the rationale for a hate crimes law; America went a century before passing a federal ban on lynching.

But hate crimes laws are not a time machine that fixes that injustice. And it is a step away from banning "hate" speech.

As we saw in New York City this week with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hate speech is a God-given right that Congress should not abridge. Let them spew.



* * *
This week, Bob Kelly is worried about the WVU game against South Florida, which has had a football team for 11 seasons and already is the second-best team in Florida.

There is karma in college football. The Atlantic Coast Conference raided the Big East of its top three teams.

But now, the Big East is ahead of the ACC with four top 25 teams, including No. 5 WVU. Two of the four replacements (Temple also dropped out) are doing well and Rutgers finally has stepped up its program.

As a lifetime rooter for the underdog, I love it.

Hate crimes laws are not necessary

FEW crimes are as horrible as the allegations of the torture, humiliation and abuse of Megan Williams, 20, of Charleston. That Williams is black and the defendants white made this an international scandal.

West Virginians are duly shamed. Immediately, there were cries to bring hate crime charges against the defendants.

Some people even wanted West Virginia to toughen its hate crimes law.

I was baffled to see that many of these advocates of tough laws against hate crimes also decry the rise in the state's prison population.

Of course, hate crimes legislation is poppycock. All crimes of violence are hate crimes.

Crime is the last segregated business in America. Most black crime victims are victims of blacks. White criminals generally pick white victims. If you are killed by a person of another color, does that make you more dead?

The charges against the six defendants are serious enough to warrant lengthy sentences. Kidnapping puts a person away for life.

Given the multiple felonies in these charges, plus previous convictions for killings by the two main defendants, there should be enough to mandate life sentences.

How would adding more time for a "hate crime" conviction do anything but waste the prosecution's time having to prove this in court?

Many, although not all, local, state and national black leaders quickly agreed with the county and federal prosecutors that hate crime charges are unnecessary.

There is a similar case in Tennessee, where some people want hate crime charges to be brought against four black men who are charged with the murder of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian, who were white. His penis was cut off; she was raped repeatedly over four days, then killed.

But Tennessee has the death penalty. It could execute them if they are found guilty.

There was the case of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Wyoming who was tortured -- and for lack of a better word, crucified.

Liberals used this to push hate crimes legislation.

A more logical move would have been to push for the execution of Shepard's murderers. Wyoming, too, has the death penalty.

But that would have gone against liberal orthodoxy.

The push for hate crimes legislation stems from liberal guilt over the treatment of the black minority by the white majority over the years. We cannot undo the past, and the present is not exactly perpetual Brotherhood Week, as the torture of Megan Williams shows.

What we can do is recognize that there are awful people of all colors who deserve to go to prison. Not for rehabilitation, but to keep them from preying on others.

The best way to prevent another torture case is to build another prison so that we do not have to let violent criminals out due to a lack of space. W.Va. should raise the food tax back to 6 percent if necessary.

How about a Megan Williams Correctional Center? There is a site in Logan County that would be a perfect location for it.

America ‘has lost the peace’

THE people in the Time-Life publishing empire dispatched one of America’s great novelists to the battlefield a year after the war ended. He found broken infrastructure, a huge black market and anti-Americanism at every corner.

Oh, and the French press hated us.

The year is 1946, not 2007. The place is Europe, not Iraq.

But the same defeatist attitude prevailed.

And the French press still hate us.

Wrote John Dos Passos: “Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. People never tire of telling you of the ignorance and rowdyism of American troops, of our misunderstanding of European conditions.

“They say that the theft and sale of Army supplies by our troops is the basis of their black market. They blame us for the corruption and disorganization of UNRRA.

“They blame us for the fumbling timidity of our negotiations with the Soviet Union. They tell us that our mechanical de-nazification policy in Germany is producing results opposite to those we planned.

“ ‘Have you no statesmen in America?’ they ask.”

Wow, that sounds like today when the left is saying our occupation of Iraq and de-Baathification have backfired. But one man’s “occupation” is another man’s protection from the Soviet Union then or al-Qaida today.

Dos Passos also wrote: “We know now the tragic results of the ineptitudes of the Peace of Versailles.

The European system it set up was Utopia compared to the present tangle of snarling misery.

“The Russians at least are carrying out a logical plan for extending their system of control at whatever cost. The British show signs of recovering their good sense and their innate human decency.

“All we have brought to Europe so far is confusion backed up by a drumhead regime of military courts. We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease.”

Reading the piece gave me one of those head-clearing laughs. This unintentionally funny piece put in perspective just how predictable the Fifth Columnists are in America.

Dos Passos died in 1970. But his words of 1946 reflect the left’s agenda of 2007.

“The taste of victory had gone sour in the mouth of every thoughtful American I met,” he wrote. “Thoughtful men can’t help remembering that this is a period in history when every political crime and every frivolous mistake in statesmanship has been paid for by the death of innocent people.”

Ah yes, once again, disagree with the left and you are not “thoughtful.”

Mistakes were made, both in World War II and the postwar era.

Many of the American combat deaths in World War II were from friendly fire. I dare say our boys committed war crimes. But unlike the Nazis and al-Qaida, we punish our war criminals.

I don’t doubt that Dos Passos saw what he saw and reported it accurately. The problem is that one year is not a long enough time with which to judge an occupation. Nor is five years. Nor is 10.

Against this intellectual hooey, President Truman stood tall. When the Soviet Union tested his resolve by shutting off West Berlin, Truman launched the unprecedented Berlin Airlift.

President Eisenhower succeeded him, winning on a pledge to stop the war in Korea. He did.

But he also kept the troops there. We still have nearly 40,000 soldiers in South Korea. We have about 100,000 in Europe.

The Soviets tested President Kennedy by walling off West Berlin. He stood tall.

So did other presidents until President Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

Gorbachev didn’t.

The people did.

America stood by its vanquished enemies. We bought their crap, creating “economic miracles” in Germany, Italy, Japan and now Korea. They put out good products now.

We held the hands of our allies as well. Sometimes we don’t see eye to eye. But the free world still looks to the United States for leadership.

The French just elected as president Nicolas Sarkozy, the most pro-American Frenchman since Lafayette. The Brits may hate the Iraq war, but they still like us. Their new prime minister made sure he visited President Bush shortly after taking office.

The Dos Passos piece puts in perspective the criticisms of postwar Iraq.

Redeploy? As Gen. Anthony McAuliffe told the Germans when they demanded he surrender: Nuts.

I thank Amy Proctor for ferreting out the 1946 article and posting it at her blog, amyproctor.squarespace.com/blog/.

Proctor is an Army wife who not only is raising four kids but has raised $15,000 for the Catholic Church in Iraq.

Forget Hillary Clinton; the first woman president will be a military wife.

And definitely, forget abandoning Iraq to al-Qaida or Iran. It won’t happen on this president’s watch — or the next one.

Osama bin Laden, D-Afghanistan?

AS he was campaigning to get a Democratic Congress, Congressman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois said, "Secretary Rumsfeld's stewardship of this effort is a failure, and he has let down our armed forces."

Emanuel said he would call for a vote of no confidence on then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Last week, Osama bin Laden released a videotape in which he said: "You made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war, not even the most violent of its murderers, Rumsfeld."

I was a Democrat for 30 years, ending in March 2002. Has someone taken my place?

In 2005, Democratic Congressman John Lewis of Georgia told an Atlanta radio station that President Bush should be impeached.

Said Lewis: "It's a very serious charge, but he violated the law. The president should abide by the law. He deliberately, systematically violated the law. He is not King, he is president."

Last week, bin Laden said: "You permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a clear mandate from you -- with your full knowledge and consent -- to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Then you claim to be innocent! The innocence of yours is like my innocence of the blood of your sons on the 11th -- were I to claim such a thing."

In November 2005, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California said: "The American people have had enough. I believe that those of us who are working in the Out of Iraq Caucus have had enough. It is time for us to review what we are doing. It is time for us to call on this president to tell the American people when and how we are going to get out, and we cannot accept that we will be there until hell freezes over if that is what it takes."

Last week, bin Laden said: "People of America: the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq, for people have recently come to know that, after several years of tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped.

"Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning. On the contrary, they continue to agree to the spending of tens of billions to continue the killing and war there."

It is telling that Republican presidential candidates Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney all released statements condemning the bin Laden tape. I could not find such a statement from the three leading Democrats: John Edwards, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

Indeed, Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio said, while in Syria: "I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation . . . I don't want to bless that occupation with my presence. I will not do it."

Let me make this clear: I am not questioning their patriotism.

God help us if anyone were to question their patriotism, which as everyone knows is the final refuge of the scoundrel.

It is their sanity that I question.

Hatch on Move On

War with Canada was averted this week

ON Tuesday afternoon, I made my first sojourn into foreign broadcasting when I "appeared" on the "Charles Adler National Radio Show" in Canada.

Fortunately, Adler did not take my remarks personally and there was no diplomatic breach between the nations. What a relief. Condoleezza Rice has enough on her plate to worry about without me starting a border war.

Adler and I chatted about the recent birth of identical quadruplets to a woman from Calgary, Alberta.

Karen Jepp was flown from her hometown of 1 million people to Great Falls, Mont., population 56,000 so she could give birth.

Canada had to fly her 325 miles because there were not enough neonatal intensive care units in Canada to handle quadruplets born two months prematurely.

Calgary's largest hospital had 16 neonatal ICU beds.

Great Falls, 20.

Maybe they should change the nation's name to Can'tada.

Adler and I had a little fun with that.

The "Canadian" quads are actually Americans, said I. Adler made a point about how Canada will pay quite a lot for the births.

Canadians are quite proud of their socialist health care system. But let's face it, America is its backup system.

Is that so bad?

Canada has 25 million people scattered around a country larger than the United States. Even if most of them live along the border, that is stretching resources rather thin.

The United States has 12 times the population and resources. It is a symbiotic relationship. Along the border, U.S. hospitals use the extra business to beef up their hardware. Great Falls does not have 20 neonatal ICU beds to serve Montanans only.

Unlike many socialist nations, Canada does not skimp on health care, devoting about 10 percent of its economy to health care.

Of course, the United States beats that with nearly 15 percent.

That is a good thing. What else are we going to spend the money on? How many video games do people need? As the old people say, if you have your health, you have everything.

Far from being a mark of a poor system, that's a tremendous investment that gives Americans the best medical system in the world.

In a few years, 20 percent of the nation's economy may be dedicated to the medical industry.

Such growth potential means the medical industry will continue to attract the best people in this nation and from around the world.

Paying for all that health care is a problem. The government pays the bills for the old people, the disabled and the poor.

But it does not pay in full, shifting the costs to the private sector.

And more frequently we see Americans flying overseas for heart surgery and the like just to save money.

Our system is far from perfect. But so is Canada's.

There is no need to scrap either system altogether.

Frankly, I would like to see the federal government butt out of the health business, particularly on the health insurance end -- at least until it pays its bills in full. But I see more government intervention on the horizon.

As for the Great Falls quads, they are in Canada now. I trust that when they grow up, they will think kindly of the land of their birth.

Bush's Led Zeppelin is taking off

UPON losing both houses in Congress last fall, President Bush decided to change the course in Iraq and go for broke.

Bush's plan went over about as well as Jimmy Page's idea for a rock group. It fell not just like a lead balloon, but a lead zeppelin, which is how Led Zeppelin got its name.

Columnist Bob Novak, in his New Year's Day column, said the Surge was in trouble.

"I checked with prominent Republicans around the country and found them confused and disturbed about the surge," Novak wrote. "They incorrectly assumed that the presence of Republican stalwart James Baker as co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group meant it was Bush-inspired (when it really was a bipartisan creation of Congress). Why, they ask, is the president casting aside the commission's recommendations and calling for more troops?"

Bush had his work cut out for him. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut was a rare supporter.

"Among Democrats, Lieberman stands alone," Novak wrote. "Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, will lead the rest of the Democrats not only to oppose a surge but to block it. Bush enters a new world of a Democratic majority where he must share the stage."

But President Bush worked hard. He rallied Republicans. He was able to stave off a couple of attempts by Congress to force the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Extra troops were sent. Rotations back home were delayed. Gen. David Petraeus had enough troops to quiet Baghdad and other hotspots.

Militarily, the Surge is working.

But a war on terrorism is a public relations war. The terrorists aim for targets that have little to do with military tactics and everything with striking fear in the public.

Bush is making progress on the political front. Democratic Congressman Brian Baird of Washington state opposed the war and was skeptical of the Surge.

Then he visited Iraq this month and came back to pen a column for the Seattle Times, "Our troops have earned more time."

After calling the war "one of the worst foreign-policy mistakes in the history of our nation," Baird asked for more time.

"It is just not realistic to expect Iraq or any other nation to be able to rebuild its government, infrastructure, security forces and economy in just four years. Despite the enormous challenges, the fact is, the situation on the ground in Iraq is improving in multiple and important ways," Baird wrote.

Of course.

Baird ended his column, "Progress is being made and there is real reason for hope. It would be a tragic waste and lasting strategic blunder to let the hard-fought and important gains slip away, leaving chaos behind to haunt us and our allies for many years to come."

America has been torn over this war. It had enormous popularity early on, which has evaporated into a seething cynicism.

This is not the first time. More than 140 years ago, America faced a similar crisis. The Copperhead Democrats wanted to make peace with the South and leave slavery alone. Too many people had died, the Democrats argued.

At Gettysburg, President Lincoln told them no, he would not allow our troops to die in vain.

Elections have meaning. This past one put Bush on notice: Win the war or be done with it.

He seems to have heard America.

Democrats are worried. The No. 3 Democrat in the House, James Clyburn of South Carolina, said last month that a good report from Petraeus in September would pose "a real big problem for us."

Here is hoping that the Clyburns of the world have a real big problem -- because that means the Iraqis have something they have not enjoyed in decades: Hope.


* * *
Correction: Last week's column stated that the violent crime rate in Canada is double that of the United States. Two frequent critics pointed out that Canada does not count crime the same way the United States does.

I apologize. I should have read the numbers more carefully. It was an apples-to-oranges comparison that I should not have made.

I stand by my overall premise that locking people up helps reduce the crime rate. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1995, the U.S. had 411 inmates and 684.6 violent crimes for every 100,000 people.

In 2005, the U.S. had 497 inmates and 469.2 violent crimes for every 100,000 people.

A Promise for West Virginia's future

In a Daily Mail column last week, economist Matt Ryan reported that the state now ranks 29th in the nation of young adults in or entering college. That is up from 49th place in 2000.

Wow. What could have possibly propelled the state to move up so quickly?

Two words: Promise scholarships. The state now picks up the tab for tuition for any student who graduates from high school with at least a B average and scores high enough on the entrance exams.

The program is simple. It selects the students who are most likely to finish college and gives them free tuition in college.

This is so unlike the state’s Higher Education grants, which give money to students not based on the likelihood of their success in college, but rather on their income. The grants are a welfare program. The grants are far less successful than Promise has proved to be.

Higher Education grants have been around for decades. They failed to move us out of 49th place.

But Promise scholarships began in 2002, and already we’re No. 29 in percentage of kids in college.

Promise works because it is a merit program. Higher Education grants fail because they are an entitlement. The minimum grade point average is 2.0 for the latter.

Students who are that lacking in either skill or interest in school have no business being in college.

Let them work for a few years. Then they will either be motivated for college, or not.

The state should concentrate its aid on its many deserving high school graduates. Every year, the politicians try to rip Promise off in the name of “saving” money.

May I remind people that the Promise program was used as an excuse to legalize video slot machines on every corner?

You want to save money? Cut legislative pay.

The one lever the politicians use to “save” money is by “raising the standards” on Promise scholarships.

It is a game. Every year, politicians raise the minimum score required on the entrance exams.

And this year, students defied them by meeting the higher standard.

Daily Mail reporter Jessica Karmasek reported in June that even after the bar was raised, more students in Kanawha and Putnam counties qualified for Promise scholarships.

The numbers in Kanawha County rose from 372 in 2006 to 412 in 2007. Likewise, Putnam County’s numbers rose from 152 in 2006 to 164 in 2007.

As Nelson Muntz says on “The Simpsons” show: “Ha, ha.”

I live for the day when each and every high school senior in West Virginia qualifies for a Promise scholarship.

From what little I have observed, the Promise scholarships help high schools by giving kids an incentive to study hard and to stay out of trouble.

My kids are beyond their Promise scholarship years. But I will defend this program because it shows for the first time that West Virginia is serious about education.

To be sure, funding for education has always been there. West Virginia is second only to Vermont in percentage of taxable income that goes to the public schools. Being 49th in income and beating the national average in spending per student is quite an achievement.

That is the result of good lobbying by teachers unions.

Don’t get me wrong. Teachers are the people who educate the kids. But you have to motivate those kids. You have to reward them.

I cannot promise that this program will help turn the state’s economy around. But it cannot hurt.

One final thought: A Mormon is suing to get an exemption so he can take a year or two off for missionary work. Well, he certainly is free to do so, but when he comes back home, he should forget about that Promise scholarship.

I hope the courts politely and firmly remind him that it is his choice. The Promise scholarship is for one year at a time. If a person misses a year, he is out.

The Promise program is a reward, not an entitlement. That is the secret to its success.

Now to see if all those extra kids in college do the state any good.

Living in fear of death is not really living

BRIAN and I met online in a Cleveland Indians forum, and later in real life. He has a wicked sense of humor, and from his lair in Montana, he observes the machinations of Cleveland baseball with an eye that is keener than the sports talk radio guys in Ohio.

Amused by the way certain fans tend to panic easily, Brian this season began writing after each loss, "We may never win again."

Likewise, each win is followed by "We may never lose again."

Baseball fans are crazy. Everyone accepts that.

But I keep noticing more of the same sort of idiot panic outside the sports pages. I don't know whether to worry about the sanity of the nation, or laugh.

I choose the latter.

Consider the collapse of the bridge in Minnesota. The tragedy attracted great media coverage at first, which quickly deteriorated into another white Bronco chase with people talking a lot but saying little.

The Associated Press reported, "More than 70,000 bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient like the span that collapsed in Minneapolis, and engineers estimate repairing them all would take at least a generation and cost more than $188 billion."

Now for the reality check, as they say on the evening news. Out of 70,000 structurally deficient bridges, one collapsed. On my slide rule, that works out to 99.99857 percent of the structurally deficient bridges still standing.

Aging bridges? Last time I checked, the Brooklyn Bridge was still there.

Far from being overeducated fools, the civil engineers are doing better than doctors. They have designed 607,363 bridges in the nation. When the nation's doctors perform 607,363 surgeries and lose only one patient, then we will talk.

The American infrastructure is crumbling? Not hardly.

Engineers are good. They built an aqueduct system for Rome 2,000 years ago. Parts of it are still standing, despite going 1,500 years with no maintenance.

The problem is that they are too good. The infrastructure has worked so well and for so long that if one thing goes wrong -- say a little steam escapes in New York -- the public panics.

Americans have always had high standards. That has helped push the nation forward. But this generation expects perfection, and people are doomed to failure when they expect the impossible.

Consider toy recalls. In April, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled Magnetix Magnetic Building Sets after one child died. A child's death is a tragedy.

But was it necessary to take this toy away from thousands of other children who are old enough to play with it without putting the magnets in their mouths?

How do we develop interest in engineering if no kid ever gets to build anything?

With all these recalls, it is amazing that kids learn to do anything besides watch TV and play video games. We are taking all the danger out of life, and with it goes life itself. Gone are the accomplishments in life.

Death is less common today than it was a century ago.

In 1900, there were 17.2 deaths for every 1,000 Americans.

In 2003, there were 8.2 deaths for every 1,000 Americans.

As the death rate in America has declined, the fear of death has risen.

I hate to break the news, but we are all going to die someday.

People can quit smoking, and that is all right by me. People can quit drinking, and that is all right by me. People can quit doing crack, and that is all right by me.

But let us not quit living.

Life is short. Enjoy it.

Don't worry so much about death. We shall all cross that bridge when we come to it.

Barry Bonds's woes cannot nullify his achievements

USUALLY by August, my fantasy baseball team is forgotten in the woods, a victim of a poor draft and even poorer trades. I fare better in fantasy football for some reason. Perhaps it is because I play against experts in baseball.

This year, I am doing OK in fantasy baseball. Oh, I still drafted poorly. And people still love trading with me.

Somehow I still wound up with Albert Pujols, Jose Reyes and Joe Mauer. And picking up Fausto Carmona from the waiver wire proved prudent.

It is the guy I picked up in the 10th round, though, who really makes this year's team delightful.

He may be 42, vilified, and hitting we