THE FOUNDATION

“[A] Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States… as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.” —Thomas Jefferson

INSIGHT

“The one resolution, which was in my mind long before it took the form of a resolution, is the key-note of my life. It is this, always to regard as mere impertinences of fate the handicaps which were placed upon my life almost at the beginning. I resolved that they should not crush or dwarf my soul, but rather be made to blossom, like Aaron’s rod, with flowers.” —Helen Keller

ICHTHUS IMPRIMIS

“With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” —Micah 6:6-8

FAMILY

“Marriage in America is undoubtedly less robust than it was 50 years ago. But it is not yet a candidate for the endangered-species list, let alone the ash heap. The Census Bureau reported last spring that by the time they are 30 to 34, a large majority of American men and women—72 percent—have been married. Among Americans 65 and older, fully 96 percent have been married. Yes, the divorce rate is high—17.7 per 1,000 marriages—and many couples live together without getting married. But marriage remains a key institution in American life… The ‘60s, the sexual revolution, no-fault divorce, the rise of single motherhood—there is no question that marriage has been through the wringer… Yet for all the buffeting our most important social institution has taken, it remains a social ideal: Boys and girls still aspire to become husbands and wives.” —Jeff Jacoby

CULTURE

“It is important for all Americans to remember that our Declaration of Independence states that every person has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It also states that these rights come from our Creator, and that governments are formed to secure these rights for all their citizens. And we believe every human life has value, and we pray for the day when every child is welcome in life and protected into law… As we move forward, we’ve all got to remember that a true culture of life cannot be built by changing laws alone. We’ve all got to work hard to change hearts… The sanctity of life is written in the hearts of all men and women. And so I say, go forth with confidence that a cause rooted in human dignity and appealing to the best instincts of our citizens cannot fail.” —President George W. Bush

LIBERTY

“That poll about Iraq… came out last week and it posed various questions about whether folks thought the ‘surge’ was a good idea or not. Including the following: ‘Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?’ And here’s how the American people answered: 63 percent said yes, 22 percent said no, 15 percent said they didn’t know. Let me see if I understand that. For four years, regardless of this or that position on the merits of the war, almost everybody has claimed to ‘support our troops.’ Some of us have always thought that ‘supporting the troops’ while not supporting them in their mission is not entirely credible. But here we have 37 percent of the American people actually urging defeat on them. They ‘support our troops’ by wanting them to lose. This isn’t a question about whether you think the plan will work, but whether you want it to work. And nearly 40 percent of respondents either don’t know or are actively rooting for failure… What were the numbers like for D-Day?” —Mark Steyn

THE GIPPER

“We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.” —Ronald Reagan

OPINION IN BRIEF

“In an era when our media and even our education system exalt emotions, while ignoring facts and logic, perhaps we should not be surprised that so many people explain economics by ‘greed.’ Today there are adults—including educated adults—who explain multimillion-dollar corporate executives’ salaries as being due to ‘greed.’ Think about it: I could become so greedy that I wanted a fortune twice the size of Bill Gates’s—but this greed would not increase my income by one cent. If you want to explain why some people have astronomical incomes, it cannot be simply because of their own desires—whether ‘greedy’ or not—but because of what other people are willing to pay them. The real question, then, is: Why do other people choose to pay corporate executives so much?… Every time oil prices shoot up, there are cries of ‘greed’ and demands by politicians for an investigation of collusion by Big Oil. There have been more than a dozen investigations of oil companies over the years, and none of them has turned up the collusion that is supposed to be responsible for high gas prices. Now that oil prices have dropped big time, does that mean that oil companies have lost their ‘greed’? Or could it all be supply and demand—a cause and effect explanation that seems to be harder for some people to understand than emotions like ‘greed’?” —Thomas Sowell

GOVERNMENT

“To understand why the Founders put war powers in the hands of the Presidency, look no further than the current spectacle in Congress on Iraq. What we are witnessing is a Federalist Papers illustration of criticism and micromanagement without responsibility. Consider the resolution pushed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee… by Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel, two men who would love to be President… Both men voted for the Iraq War. But with that war proving to be more difficult than they thought, they now want to put themselves on record as opposing any further attempts to win it… In addition to being feckless, all of this is unconstitutional. As Commander-in-Chief, the President has the sole Constitutional authority to manage the war effort. Congress has two explicit war powers: It has the power to declare war, which in the case of Iraq it essentially did with its resolution of 2003. It also has the power to appropriate funds. There is a long and unsettled debate over whether Congress can decide to defund specific military operations once it has created a standing Army. We lean toward those who believe it cannot, but the Founders surely didn’t imagine that Congress could start dictating when and where the 101st Airborne could be deployed once a war is under way.” —The Wall Street Journal

RE: THE LEFT

“The junior senator from the Empire State may not be leading with her strength with the theme of ‘a time for chatting.’ Of all the politicians who have strode, minced, ambled or marched across the stage of American politics over the years, Hillary may be the one least likely to induce the desire to be chatted up by… [W]hether with politicians or the gent or lady at the next bar stool, the essence of chatting is lightness and spontaneity… Hillary Milhous Rodham-Clinton… is about as spontaneous as the old Soviet Politburo. One has the sense that she has been planning this moment since about 1957… Can you imagine Hillary having a sincere, two-sided conversation with you—a total stranger? She would have that huge painted-on smile aimed at your eyes, while her eyes would be looking over your shoulder to her handler with the exasperated ‘get me out of here’ look… [T]he compulsion to false self-presentation is a disqualifying character trait for the presidency. And unlike her husband, she lacks the lightness and dexterity to hide that fatal flaw.” —Tony Blankley

POLITICAL FUTURES

“On one issue after another, in which the liberalism of the Left could be highlighted between now and 2008, Republicans are running from the spotlight and letting the Leftist agenda of the Democrats advance unchecked… Undoubtedly, the most frustrating aspect of Republican action (or more accurately, inaction) is the fact that they need not do so. Democrats regularly show, by their own timidity in regards to such issues as the war and America’s social climate, that they know such things to be liabilities. Republicans could indeed exploit them for the betterment of the country and for political gain, if only they possessed the vertebrae (and possibly other body parts) needed to muster the courage to pursue them. Abundant and scathing news stories notwithstanding, it is President Bush’s unshakable resolve to stay the course in Iraq that has divided and disoriented Congressional Democrats who had hoped to placate their far-Left base by implementing an immediate course of withdrawal. However, in the face of a president who shows some good old-fashioned ‘spine,’ at least in this one area of his policy, the Democrats dare not indulge themselves in official defeatism and retreat. The contrast between the two camps would ultimately prove devastating to them.” —Christopher Adamo

FOR THE RECORD

“The environmental extremists’ true agenda has little or nothing to do with climate change. Their true agenda is to find a means to control our lives. The kind of repressive human control, not to mention government-sanctioned mass murder, seen under communism has lost any measure of intellectual respectability. So people who want that kind of control must come up with a new name, and that new name is environmentalism. Last year, 60 prominent scientists signed a letter saying, ‘Observational evidence does not support today’s computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future… Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.’ They added, ‘It was only 30 years ago that many of today’s global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas.’ These scientists have probably won The Weather Channel’s ire and might be headed toward a Nuremberg-type trial.” —Walter Williams

SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“Another fine commentary on the State of the Union. I listened to the SOTU pep talk; I heard all of President Bush’s grand and glorious plans. I am still waiting, as I have after all of these speeches, for the president to indicate what part of the Constitution of the United States allows the federal government to interfere in health care, insurance, vehicle fuel mileage ‘standards,’ or any of the other socialist (at best) programs proposed?” —Jackson, Mississippi

“Winning this war doesn’t just mean our troops return unscathed, nor does it necessarily mean killing every terrorist in Iraq. To win this war is to finish what we started and give the Iraqi people a government that can protect its people and diminish the terrorist threat. We are getting closer daily as our troops continue training the Iraqi military. We will not abandon them to the hands of tyrants and watch their newfound democracy crumble. To our troops: Stay Strong, you’re in our prayers.” —Omaha, Nebraska

“The left’s repeated message that life is not precious, whether it be embryonic, pre-born, weak, or elderly should give us a clue about how we can anticipate they will value our troops in Iraq. They’re all expendable. There is nothing new under the sun!” —Stacy, Minnesota

THE LAST WORD

“As long as we have revived the practice of celebrating multicultural milestones (briefly suspended when Condoleezza Rice became the first black female to be Secretary of State), let us pause to note that Mrs. Clinton, if elected, would be the first woman to become president after her husband had sex with an intern in the Oval Office… Mrs. Clinton is probably the real front-runner based on: (1) the multiple millions of dollars she has raised, and (2) the fact that her leading Democratic opponent is named ‘Barack Hussein Obama.’ Or, as he’s known at CNN, ‘Osama.’ Or, as he’s known on the Clinton campaign, ‘The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations.’ Mrs. Clinton’s acolytes are floating the idea of Hillary as another Margaret Thatcher to get past the question, ‘Can a woman be elected president?’ This is based on the many, many things Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher have in common, such as the lack of a Y chromosome and… hmmm, you know, I think that’s it. Girl-power feminists who got where they are by marrying men with money or power—Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Arianna Huffington and John Kerry—love to complain about how hard it is for a woman to be taken seriously.” —Ann Coulter

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.)