THE FOUNDATION

“Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself.” — Benjamin Franklin

INSIGHT

“I can only say that I am nothing but a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation.” —Robert E. Lee

“The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be.” —Socrates

“It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.” —Albert Einstein

“I cannot think of a single example at any time or any place where there was a large measure of political freedom without there also being something comparable to a private enterprise market form of economic organization for the bulk of economic activity.” —Milton Friedman

“Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.” —Will Rogers

UPRIGHT

“Conservatives are often accused of being anti-government. It’s an unfair rap—coming, ironically, from liberals whose blind faith in government causes plenty of social ills—but the myth persists. In fact, conservatives favor a limited government that carries out its express duties (and no more) as efficiently and effectively as possible.” —Rebecca Hagelin

“Our elites have become so insulated from reality that they imagine America can suffer defeat without inconvenience to themselves. Defeat would be an embarrassment to President Bush, but nothing more.” —Jack Kelly

“One of the scariest aspects of our times is how easy it is for glib loudmouths to turn us against each other, weakening the whole framework of society, on which we all depend.” —Thomas Sowell

“As a broad rule, intentions are the currency of the left, while results matter most to the right. That is why Bill Clinton made a point of feeling our pain, while Ronald Reagan insisted that facts were stubborn things.” —Jeff Jacoby

“In the wake of New York City’s ban on restaurant use of trans fat, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the ban is ‘not going to take away anybody’s ability to go out and have the kind of food they want, in the quantities they want… We are just trying to make food safer.’ That, my friends, is tyrannical double-talk.” —Walter Williams

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

“Not only do American high schools fail to educate students about U.S. history and civics, but by the time many students finish college they know even less. That’s the conclusion of ‘the largest statistically valid survey ever conducted to determine what colleges and universities are teaching their students about America’s history and institutions.’ That study, conducted for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute by the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy, surveyed 14,094 college freshmen and seniors at 50 U.S. colleges and universities from Massachusetts to California. It found a stunning ignorance. Seniors scored an average of 53.2 on the 60-question civics test. That’s a big, fat F. More than half of college seniors could not identify the correct century in which the Jamestown colony was founded or name the battle that ended the American Revolution. Truly frightening, more than half also did not know that the Bill of Rights forbids the federal government from establishing a national religion. These are college seniors. Among the institutions whose students were surveyed: Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Michigan. It should go without saying that in a republic, civic education is a fundamental necessity. If even our elite college graduates have no idea what the First Amendment does, the country is in trouble.” —New Hampshire Union Leader

DEZINFORMATSIA

Are there two different Fort Bennings?: “Bush Cheered at Fort Benning: FORT BENNING, Ga.—President Bush, surrounded on Thursday by cheering soldiers in camouflage, defended his decision to send 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq and cautioned that the buildup will not produce quick results. ‘It’s going to take awhile,’ he said.” —headline and lead paragraph, Associated Press, Jan. 11 ++ “Bush Speaks and Base Is Subdued: FORT BENNING, Ga., Jan. 11—President Bush came to this Georgia military base looking for a friendly audience to sell his new Iraq strategy. But his lunchtime talk received a restrained response from soldiers who clapped politely but showed little of the wild enthusiasm that they ordinarily shower on the commander in chief.” —The New York Times, Jan. 12 **Hat tip: James Taranto

Poor terrorists: “Human Rights Watch says detaining hundreds of men without charge at Guantanamo has been a legal and political debacle of historic proportions. But what can human rights groups do to shut the facility down or put pressure on governments?” —CNN’s Hala Gorani

From the Leftmedia Psychosis Files: “Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?” —CBS’s Scott Pelley to President Bush, who answered rightly, “We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude.”

Patronizing the U.S. Armed Forces: “A dangerous president must be saved from himself, so that the American kids he’s about to hurl into the hell of Baghdad can be saved along with him.” —Frank Rich, NY Times ++ “The American military’s cocky heroes were supposed to sweep in and carry off a poor, grateful Iraq to security and bliss… Didn’t happen.” —Maureen Dowd, NY Times

Names, please: “As the President prepares to start a new phase of the war in Iraq, the White House is fending off charges that key figures in the administration have concluded the war is lost.” —NBC’s David Gregory

Newspulper Headlines: Finally, Strong Leaders Who’ll Get Things Done!: “Democrats Plan Symbolic Votes Against Iraq Plan” —The New York Times

Maybe the Storekeeper Should Close a Window: “Windy Day in Store” —Wausau (WI) Daily Herald ++ Hey! Storekeeper! CLOSE THE WINDOW ALREADY!!: “Another Windy Day in Store” —Wausau Daily Herald

This Just In: “China’s Manufacturing Labor Costs Still Well Below U.S.” —Manufacturing.net

Somewhere in the Neighborhood of 100%: “Risk of Death High for New Ex-Cons” —Associated Press

News You Can Use: “Being Bird-Brained Is Not So Bad—as Long as It Is a Big Bird Brain” —Scientific American

Bottom Story of the Day: “Decision Looms for Kerry on ‘08 Run” —Boston Globe (Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

THE DEMO-GOGUES

He knows something about absurdity: “Frankly, it’s a complete absurdity to be pursuing the notion that somehow troops are going to resolve the security issue.” —Jean-Francois Kerry ++ Feminists R Us: “Who pays the price [for the troops increase in Iraq]? I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young. You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family.” —Barbara Boxer to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ++ Somebody call a trial lawyer!: “Silence is betrayal, and I believe it is a betrayal not to speak out against the escalation of the war in Iraq… We need to show we are serious about leaving, and the best way to do that is to start leaving.” —John Edwards

Pronouncement to the peons: “Over the past two years, Democrats reached for their roots as true members of our Party. We listened to the hopes and dreams of everyday Americans. We rejected the politics of fear and division. We embraced a vision of hope and shared purpose.” —Teddy Kennedy, who stooped to our impoverished level, if only long enough to get elected ++ Demo Manifesto: “Government doesn’t have to interfere with the free enterprise system, but we can work along with it to reduce inequality.” —Barney Frank ++ More from the Class Warfare Department: “Today we finally release [minimum-wage workers] from being frozen in time, stuck at that wage level when their gas prices are higher, their education prices are higher, when their medical costs are higher.” —Rep. George Miller

Figures of speech: “The federal government is quite literally falling asleep at the switch when it comes to protecting our communities from deadly train derailments.” —Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is figuratively nuts

VILLAGE IDIOTS

This week’s “Moral Innumeracy” Award: “Its torture, its detention without trial, even its disappearance of people, because the 14 people who were recently moved [to Guantanamo] had disappeared for years and no one knew where they were, they basically had become basically nonentities. That has become a tool for terrorist recruiters. It has undermined the cooperation that people need to fight terrorism around the world. It has meant the United States has lost the moral high ground in the important fight against terrorism.” —Human Rights Watch Executive Director, Ken Roth the terrorists now occupying the moral high ground?

Criminal minds: “I’m saying it’s a fictional creation. It has so many [factual] holes in it that anybody who knew anything about it would know that I didn’t write it.” —O.J. Simpson on his unpublished book, “If I Did It…”

It’s all about abortion: “Stem cell research is a woman’s issue. Women undergoing fertility treatment deserve the right to donate their leftover embryos for research.” —National Organization for Women press release ++ “[George W. Bush] has traded away the prospect for healing technologies in an effort to pacify his extremist base… Women and men who have frozen embryos must have the right to donate them to science. In addition, we must accelerate the pace of research into cures for our most deadly diseases.” —NOW president Kim Gandy

SHORT CUTS

“’Castro Reportedly in Grave,’ begins an Associated Press headline. Unfortunately, the next word is ‘Condition’.” —James Taranto

“[Dick] Durbin called upon Iraq’s government to ‘disband’ the militias and death squads. Not destroy, but ‘disband.’ How is that supposed to happen? By asking them nicely? ‘Disband, please, and on the way home, if you see a Sunni (Shiite), give him a hug’.” —George Will

“[Congressman Keith] Abu Ellison rhetorically inquired of the Dearborn Brethren: ‘How do you know that Allah… did not bring you here so that you could understand how to teach people what tolerance was, what justice was?’ Right you are, Keith. After all, there are so many shining examples of justice and tolerance in the Muslim world, where minorities are treated with such admirable fairness, justice is impartially administered and respect for human rights is a standard we could all emulate. (Please note the sarcasm here.)” —Don Feder

“Harry Reid is still in the first stages of a romance, fondling the keys to his own upscale toilet, and a little disbelieving at how many more microphones he can attract now when he feels the surge to say something irresponsible.” —Wesley Pruden

“[W]e will see unicorns grazing on the Capitol lawns and lions laying down with lambs in Washington’s green and gentle Arcadian fields before we actually spot genuine bipartisanship in Washington.” —Tony Blankley

“My girlfriend in business school was drop-dead gorgeous, and a socialist. But I simply couldn’t marry someone who didn’t understand the importance of cutting the capital gains tax—unless tremendous quantities of money were involved and she was old with a bad heart.” —Grover Norquist

David Letterman: Top Surprises in President Bush’s “60 Minutes” Interview: Interview was conducted in the Camp David hot tub; Announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election; While walking through the woods, constantly ducking Cheney buckshot; Vowed in the future he’ll make much better mistakes; All the Heineken empties; Paused for a CIA briefing about likely Golden Globe winners; Bush’s tearful admission he bet entire United States budget on the Chargers.

Jay Leno: It was so cold out [in L.A. today] that even celebrities stopped talking about global warming. … [Meanwhile], 2006 has been officially named the hottest year on record. When he heard this Al Gore said, “Yes! Oh wait… that’s terrible I mean.” … Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd is running for president. He says that he was been having conversations with the mirror over running. The mirror first said, “Who are you again?” The bad news is today the mirror said that it favors Barack Obama. … John Kerry is hiring staff and preparing another run for the White House. He is telling people he will not make the same mistakes again. This time, all new mistakes. … Apple unveiled their first combination iPod and cell phone. They say their goal is to create the most annoying person ever to sit behind you in a movie theater. … Have you heard about this thing? It’s an iPod, cell phone, and also a camera. It allows you to surf the Internet too. How about a cell phone you can actually talk to people on—and hear them? Why don’t we try that first? … Would you watch movies on a cell phone? How blind would you be then? As if people don’t have enough car accidents. “I can’t take this call, I’m watching a movie.” … Taser international has begun selling a new stylish cell phone size stun gun for regular use by ordinary people. It’s $350, and sends 50,000 volts for 30 seconds and can be used 50 times before re-charging. Look, if you live in a neighborhood where you have to stun attackers 50 times before you get home, you might want to move to a better neighborhood.

Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who have died in defense of American liberty, while prosecuting the war with Jihadistan.)