THE FOUNDATION

“A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts.” — James Madison

INSIGHT

“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is the highest political end.” —Lord Acton ++ “The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.” —Edmund Burke

“Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” —Aesop

“The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.” —Baruch Spinoza

“There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.” —Euripides

“Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” —Mark Twain

UPRIGHT

“Critics of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war in Iraq have long demanded that he admit his mistakes. But they have not admitted their own past mistakes, much less admit the potentially catastrophic mistake they will make in the future if they make it impossible to sustain military operations there.” —Thomas Sowell

“You have to be amused by the Democrats’ antics—after all, these are the same people who made a career out of blocking up-or-down votes on the confirmation of hordes of constitutionalist nominees to the federal courts. And now they are back at it, blocking a full debate on the war and the vital issue of funding our troops in harm’s way and having the gall to say it’s the Republicans doing the blocking.” —Michael Reagan

“[I]t is significant that in [Hillary] Clinton’s case, for the past 30 years, from 1978 through 2007—which is to say throughout most, almost all, of her adulthood—her view of America, and of American life, came through the tinted window of a limousine. (Now the view is, mostly, through the tinted window of an SUV.)…[H]er life has been eased and cosseted by… aides, drivers, cooks, Secret Service, etc. Her life has been lived within a motorcade. And so she didn’t have to worry about crime, the cost of things, the culture. Status incubates.” —Peggy Noonan

“Most of us aren’t reading the science, or even a precis of the science. We’re just reading a constant din from the press that ‘the science is settled,’ and therefore we no longer need to think about it: The thinking has been done for us. Last week’s UN IPCC ‘report,’ for example, is not the report, but a political summary thereof.” —Mark Steyn

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

“If you think the Democratic leadership in Congress is above playing politics with our troops in the field, think again. Democrats are desperate to capitalize on the public’s dissatisfaction with the war by passing a purely political resolution (sponsored by Republican Sen. John Warner) opposing President Bush’s troop surge for Iraq. The nonbinding resolution would do two things. First, it would achieve its intended purpose of generating more bad press for Bush and the Republicans right as the 2008 Presidential campaign gets under way. Second, it would achieve the unintended consequence of undermining troop morale and boosting the spirits of the enemy. But hey, as long as it hurts Bush, right? Sen. Judd Gregg is not amused. He’s introduced his own resolution, which would oppose cutting off funds to our military personnel already serving in Iraq. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who claims to support the troops, saw Gregg’s resolution and refused to allow a vote on it. Reid on Monday characterized Gregg’s resolution as a ‘distraction’ from the important issue of opposing a troop increase, which everyone already knows the Democrats oppose. Only in Washington can a non-binding political statement be considered the ‘real’ issue and a promise to give troops the money and equipment they need for the duration of the war be considered a ‘distraction’.” —The Hew Hampshire Union Leader

DEZINFORMATSIA

Potty mouth: “We love good mayors because we love our cities and [Rudy] Giuliani is a city guy… I’m so sick of Southern guys with ranches running this country. I want a guy to run for president who doesn’t have a f***ing ranch…” —MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on the Don Imus radio show

Gray Lady in the red: “I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either. The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we’re leading there.” —Arthur Sulzberger, owner, chairman and publisher of The New York Times

When one equals “all”: “[The troops here in Iraq] all told me it’s time to end this war…[T]he soldiers also asked why it seems from here there are no plans to end the war, just discussions of battle tactics?” —NBC’s Richard Engel after playing one soundbite from a discouraged soldier

Media infatuation: “Would you not be better off trying to affect this change from the White House as opposed to doing it in a sort of ‘Johnny Appleseed’ way?” —CBS’s Harry Smith to Al Gore

This week’s “Moral Innumeracy” Award: “I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.” —Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe

That’s the spirit!: “Having lost in Vietnam, many Americans cannot bear the thought of another defeat. That’s why the stakeholders in the current conflict—the president and his party, principally—cannot bring themselves to accept the fact that the Iraq war is lost.” —Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift

Newspulper Headlines: They Ate the Forbidden Grass: “Sheep Moved From Paradise to Wyoming” —Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, MT)

‘Uh, Sorry About That’: “Man Pleads Guilty to Murder, Apologizes” —Daily Sentinel (Nacogdoches, TX)

News You Can Use: “For Women, Nothing’s Like the Smell of Men’s Sweat” —Reuters

Bottom Story of the Day: “Kerry Raps GOP, Bush’s Iraq Troop Surge” —Associated Press (Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

THE DEMO-GOGUES

Warrentless wiretapping?: “I know what [Newt] Gingrich tells people privately, I know what [Tom] DeLay tells people privately, I know what Karl Rove tells people privately. I’m the one person they are most afraid of. Bill and I have beaten them before and we will again.” —Hillary Clinton

Dumb and dumber: “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.” —Barack Obama

Sound the retreat: “[W]e don’t believe that that policy [of a troop surge in Iraq] will work. The overwhelming sentiment of the military is it won’t work, and certainly the American people do not believe it’ll work.” —House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer ++ “It is a betrayal not to stop this president’s plan to escalate the war when we have the responsibility, the power and the ability to stop it. We cannot be satisfied with passing nonbinding resolutions that we know this president will ignore.” —John Edwards

It ain’t you: “I really believe the American people get the fact that with the next president, there’s no margin for error. He’s going to inherit a world and a nation where this guy is going to leave him in a real deep hole. The next president has to get us out of Iraq without ruining the Middle East, so Americans should be looking for the person with the most experience.” —Joe Biden

This week’s “Quid Pro Homo” Award: “For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists. They’re very brave with the terrorists, and if the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.” —Rep. Gary Ackerman

Totally wasted, dude: “[T]he war should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and on which we’ve now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.” —Barack Obama, taking a cue from John Kerry ++ Oh, that’s what he *meant: “Their sacrifices are never wasted… What I meant to say was those sacrifices have not been honored by the same attention to strategy, diplomacy and honesty on the part of civilian leadership that would give them a clear mission.” —Barack Obama

VILLAGE IDIOTS

From the Hot Air Department: “What we need is a moratorium on all new coal plants, on all new carbon-producing energy power technologies, and work on replacing them with renewable alternatives…[Global climate change is] single greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced.” —Ted Turner ++ “Never before has all of civilization been threatened. We have everything we need to save it, with the possible exception of political will. But political will is a renewable resource.” —Al Gore

More “support” for the troops: “Truth is harsh. It’s not pretty, but here is the message the troops should be hearing: You have been sent to fight and die so that several American corporations can make untold fortunes from your sacrifices. You were lied to from the beginning. There was no threat to the United States. You are not defending ‘freedom.’ You are dying so that others may get richer. That’s why your friends have died, your wives, husbands, children, grandchildren, even Cindy Sheehan’s son. Not for freedom, or to prevent another 911, but for the greed of the friends of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. In other words, in vain.” —Tom D’Antoni on the Huffington Post blog

Sure, we believe you: “We shy away from any kind of conflict and any kind of bloodshed, and we will be sad by such. We are opposed to any kind of conflict and as we have said repeatedly we think the world problem can be solved through dialogue, the use of logic and a sense of friendship. There is no need for the use of force.” —Iran’s Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad, who will apparently “dialogue” Israel off the map

SHORT CUTS

“Public policy is all about trade-offs. Economists understand this better than politicians because voters want to have their cake and eat it too, and politicians think whatever is popular must also be true.” —Jonah Goldberg

“John Edwards refused Friday to fire bloggers who once slammed the Catholic Church. They’re doing a great job for him. It’s all over the Internet that Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein and that Al Gore has the same first name as al-Qa’ida.” —Argus Hamilton

“The rumor in Hollywood right now is that Al Gore may announce that he is running for president during a speech at the Academy Awards. That’s right; they found a way to make Oscar speeches even more boring.” —Conan O’Brien

“To see how liberal history is created, you need to tune into the nut-cable stations and watch their coverage of the Scooter Libby trial. On MSNBC they’re covering the trial like it’s the Normandy Invasion, starring Elvis Presley, as told by Joseph Goebbels.” —Ann Coulter

“When a pol prefaces an answer to a question with the emphatic assertion that he or she ‘wants to be very clear about this,’ you can put it down that you’ve wandered into a suburb of Obfuscation City.” —Wesley Pruden

David Letterman: “Top Ways To Make The Grammy Awards More Exciting”: One Grammy is full of angry yellow jackets; Give a Grammy to the artist whose CD is easiest to open, am I right people?; Michael Richards hands out Rap and Hip Hop awards; Announce Academy Award winners; Performance by Dennis Kucinich; Put another “m” in “Grammy”; Satellite hookup to any winners who are currently incarcerated.

Jay Leno: NASA made it official today: They are no longer going to recruit their astronauts from eHarmony.com. … Al Gore thanked the music industry for helping to protect the environment. Really? I think Snoop Dogg alone has put enough smoke into the earth’s atmosphere to block out half the sunlight. … As you know, Al Gore has been nominated for two Academy Awards. But he has a bit of a problem, as far as transportation goes. He doesn’t want to ride there in a big car, and if you’ve seen al lately, he not longer fits in a small car. So unless Hummer comes out with a hybrid in two weeks, he is screwed. … In an interview with USA Today, Senator Barack Obama says the shortness of his political resume is his “greatest strength.” Politics is the only business where people brag about how little experience they have. Can you imagine guys saying to you, “Look, I’ve never been to medical school, I’ve never even watched E.R., but if you just let me try and do this brain operation I’ll do the best job I can.” … So many places ban smoking in public. If Barack Obama wants to smoke, he has to go someplace where no one is around. Like a Joe Biden rally. Some place like that. … Funny story I saw on the news last night. Seems a couple of people walking down the street in Washington, DC, passed actor Will Smith and they thought he was Barack Obama! They stopped him and said they’re voting for him in 2008. Actually, [the] same thing happened to Elton John. People thought he was Hillary… Famous designer Donatella Versace has recommended that Hillary Clinton stop wearing those pant suits and start wearing dresses and skirts. Versace said Hillary should treat femininity as an opportunity. You know, the way Bill does.

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.)