THE FOUNDATION:

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence… the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake.” —George Washington

VILLAGE IDIOTS

Somehow, we don’t believe you: “All of our nuclear activities have been completely peaceful.” —Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad to the UN

From the Not-So-Homo-Promo Files: “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that like in your country… In Iran we do not have this phenomenon.” —Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad, neglecting to mention that homosexuals are executed in Iran

This week’s “Yellow Ribbon” Award: “First of all, General Petraeus has been dishonest. That is sort of the role of a soldier like that, they, just like General Westmoreland and the 5-o’clock reports in Vietnam. Of course they are dishonest. That’s what they do. And the thing is to pretend that it’s MoveOn.org that has the problem, and that the mainstream media allows that nonsense to continue. Yet, he is betraying us and I don’t know why there aren’t more brave Democrats who will say, ‘yeah, he is’.” —Janeane Garofalo *Is there an empty seat on Ahmadi-Nejad’s return flight to Iran?

Moral innumeracy: “If [Adolf] Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform from which to speak…[and was] willing to engage in a debate and a discussion to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him.” —Columbia University’s Dean John Coatsworth

Carter diplomacy: “When the President flatly asserts [Iran is] seeking nuclear weapons, he’s overstating the facts. We are suspicious, we have strong suspicions, but we don’t have facts that they are. If we escalate the tensions, if we succumb to hysteria, if we start making threats, we are likely to stampede ourselves into a war, which most reasonable people agree would be a disaster for us.” —The Carter administration’s “National security advisor” Zbigniew Brzezinski

DEZINFORMATSIA

From the Sycophant Files: “[Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad] is genuinely religious, genuinely humble, there are no fancy clothes, fancy cars. He lives with his wife and his three children—they live in an apartment in Tehran. He is a very modest man and said to be absolutely incorruptible as well.” —CBS’s Scott Pelley ++ Uh, not exactly the same thing: “Ahmadi-Nejad’s not a liberal. He’s a conservative. He’s very right wing. He was welcome at Columbia University. You shouldn’t be complaining.” —Fox News’ Alan Colmes to author David Horowitz

Good, tough questions: “What value do you think Ahmadi-Nejad’s comments will add to the debate in this country?” —ABC’s Chris Cuomo to Columbia president Bollinger ++ “Here’s a leader who’s advocated the destruction of Israel, denied the Holocaust, and is accused by our government, the United States government, of supplying both fighters and equipment to insurgents in Iraq, to kill U.S. troops. Why would you ever want him on your campus?… Why didn’t you allow Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist that same opportunity to be challenged? I know that he spoke there last year, and his speech was interrupted by students who stormed the stage, but he had a speaking engagement coming up October 6th that was canceled. Why do you allow Ahmadi-Nejad there and not the founder of the Minuteman Project?” —CNN’s John Roberts to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger

From the Department of Corrections: “MoveOn.org paid what is known in the newspaper industry as a standby rate of $64,575 that it should not have received under Times policies. The group should have paid $142,083…[I]t gave fresh ammunition to a cottage industry that loves to bash The Times as a bastion of the ‘liberal media’.” —New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt on the MoveOn.org ad

Newspulper Headlines: Osama Imitates Obama: “Osama bin Laden may release a new message within days calling for attacks on Pakistan, according to a group that monitors extremist Web sites.” —Bloomberg

News of the Tautological: “Stuck in Traffic? You’re Not Alone” —Associated Press

It Better Not Be Wide: “Anglican Gay-Bishop Stance is Put to a Test” —Chicago Tribune

‘Dude, No Wonder I Can’t Inhale!’: “Sam’s Joint Smoke-Free” —Grand Rapids (MI) Press

Avast, Software Buccaneers, You Be Keelhauled!: “University in N.D. Warns Students About Pirating” —Associated Press

News You Can Use: “Campaign Comments Can’t Always Be Taken at Face Value” —Bellingham (WA) Herald

Bottom Story of the Day: “Democrats Fail to Pass Anti-War Bill” —Associated Press (Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

INSIGHT

“[T]he Constitution does not say Government shall decree the right to keep and bear arms. The Constitution says ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’.” —Ronald Reagan

“The punishment of wise men who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men.” —Plato

“What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?” —Adam Smith

“With every civil right there has to be a corresponding civil obligation.” —Edison Haines

“There are two races of men in this world, but only these two—the ‘race’ of the decent man and the ‘race’ of the indecent man.” —Viktor Frankl

UPRIGHT

“It’s too bad that the leadership of Columbia University hasn’t learned the lesson…[that] America honors freedom of expression by being a refuge for the oppressed, not by giving a soapbox to the oppressors.” —Newt Gingrich

“One basic problem with nationalized health care is that it makes medical services seem free. That pushes demand beyond supply. Governments deal with that by limiting what’s available.” —John Stossell ++ “In her latest plan to transform the American health care system, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton invokes a word she usually reserves for abortion: choice. It sounds good, but like all things Clinton, you have to look behind the facade to discover reality.” —Cal Thomas ++ “Sometimes Hillary Clinton leaves me breathless with the sheer arrogance of her assumption that the American people are like a bunch of straw-chewing rubes eager to buy her latest brand of snake oil.” —Michael Reagan ++ “Only two groups of Americans should worry about Hillary Clinton’s new health-care plan: the healthy and the sick. The healthy are going to pay more, since one of Clinton’s ideas is to prohibit insurance companies from giving them a discount.” —National Review

“Lest we smugly sneer at college seniors for what they don’t know, we should see how we answer these questions ourselves: Where does the phrase the ‘wall of separation’ between church and state appear? What Supreme Court decision ended legal racial segregation in the United States? Why were the Federalist Papers written? What is federalism? What is the Monroe Doctrine? What is meant by a ‘progressive’ tax?” —Suzanne Fields

THE DEMO-GOGUES

Some “choice”: “It is long past time that Americans and the richest of all countries realize that healthcare is a right and not a privilege. And that goes especially for people who work hard every single day…[T]his is not government-run healthcare. We don’t create any new bureaucracy, but we do have shared responsibility.” —Hillary Clinton on her new plan ++ “It’s similar to the one I put forth last spring, though my universal healthcare plan would go further in reducing the punishing cost of healthcare than any other proposal that’s been offered in this campaign.” —Barack Obama on HillaryCare redux ++ “Does Mrs. Clinton’s plan seem very familiar to you? Mrs. Clinton has—seven and a half months after John unveiled his healthcare plan—unveiled a healthcare plan that is in every material respect just like John’s.” —Elizabeth Edwards on HillaryCare

Please, no!: “My basic job will be to support her if she wins. Go and do what is most needed, and what is best for the country, let her make that call.” —Bill Clinton, aspiring First Lady

Redistribution of Income: “If we kept the payroll-tax rate exactly the same but applied it to all earnings and not just the first $97,000, we could eliminate the entire Social Security shortfall.” —economic expert Barack Obama

“Iran, in particular because of the bad decision this administration has made by invading Iraq, is a major player in the Middle East. If it is in the United States’ interest to make certain that we can stabilize the situation and avoid further military confrontation and curb state sponsored terrorism they’ve been involved with, that’s something we should be willing to do.” —foreign-policy expert Barack Obama *“If?!”

It’s lonely out there: “I’m looking for five people who care.” —hair-care expert John Edwards in an e-mail to supporters

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

“Time was, Ronald Reagan’s 600-ship Navy gave us freedom of the seas. But if Joe Biden and the Senate have their way, we’ll need the permission of 21 judges in Hamburg. On Thursday, presidential wannabe Biden will chair hearings intended to lead to the ratification of the quarter-century-old Law of the Sea treaty (LOST), a document that would severely restrict our ability to use oceans to defend ourselves and would turn over control of 70% of the world’s surface to a U.N. bureaucracy. Supporters say we must be a signatory to guarantee our share of the resources to be found under the world’s oceans and to avoid situations like the race to claim the sea bed under the Arctic between Russia, Canada and other states. But experience suggests a Law of the Sea tribunal won’t protect interests we should be protecting ourselves. LOST would create an International Seabed Authority (ISA) with the power to regulate and tax things like seabed mining, fishing rights and deep-sea oil exploration. The ISA would decide who gets access to the sea’s resources, and the companies granted these rights would pay a royalty to the ISA. When he refused to sign ISA in 1982, President Reagan rightly decided the U.S. shouldn’t be a part of this global resource grab and redistribution of wealth. It’s in the area of national security that LOST is most dangerous. The [Bush] administration cites military support for the treaty because of its uniform limit on territorial waters and its establishment of ‘rules of the road’ for littoral waters. But current international law already protects nonaggressive passage of military ships. When Reagan vetoed the treaty, the U.S. Navy had 594 warships. We could protect our own right of passage. Today the fleet has withered to 276 vessels. Is that why we need the treaty? The answer is to build more warships. Our access to the seas should be guaranteed by the Navy and not a U.N. bureaucracy.” —Investor’s Business Daily

SHORT CUTS

“The president of Iran gave a speech in New York City… and thousands of New Yorkers are really upset about it. The New Yorkers said, ‘If we want to hear a short-tempered Iranian man yell at us, we’ll take a cab’.” —Conan O’Brien

“Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled her new healthcare plan. Unlike her old healthcare plan, which took longer to read than most cancers take to kill you, this one’s instant and painless—just a spoonful of government sugar to help the medicine go down.” —Mark Steyn

“Bill Clinton appeared on the ‘Daily Show’ Thursday and the former president made some news. He said he may slit his throat if he becomes First Lady. No one knew if he was kidding or just promising anything to get conservatives to vote for Hillary.” —Argus Hamilton ++ “I think she’d make a much better first lady than Bill Clinton.” —Fred Thompson on his wife Jeri

“Like actress Sally Field, I am a mom. Unlike Sally Field, I do not live in La-La Land. We breathe a different brand of oxygen. We hold diametrically opposed worldviews. We have nothing in common but stretch marks.” —Michelle Malkin

“Has anyone else noticed the nonexistence of a charitable organization known as ‘Lawyers Without Borders’?” —Ann Coulter

David Letterman: “Top Ten Contest” for the “Top Ten Television Shows in Iraq”: “Extremist Makeover”; “Sects And The City”; “So, You Want To Be A Martyr”; “Sponge Bob Square Burka”; “Wives Swap”; “Sunni & Cher”; “Kurd Your Enthusiasm”; “Are You Smarter Than a Goat Herder?”; “How I Met Your Mullah”; “Desperate Cavewives.”

Jay Leno: The president of Iran, Mahmud Ahma-nut job, came to New York to address the United Nations. Why isn’t his name on the no-fly list? You don’t want to get stuck behind him in the security line. How long would that take? Actually, you know he’d go through the line in two minutes, but they’d strip search the 85-year-old grandmother standing behind him. … Did you know he was issued a visa to come here? Isn’t that amazing? You need a visa to get into the United States now! When did they start with that? … You know the interesting part? After he landed, he actually drove his own cab in from the airport. … According to a new report out of Cuba, Fidel Castro is near death, but is clinging to life and he is determined to outlive the Bush presidency. Wow, just like Dan Rather. … At a John Kerry speech at the University of Florida, a student was asking the senator so many annoying questions that police tasered him. Of course, people in Washington were stunned by this. What? John Kerry’s still giving speeches? … While the cops had him down, did you hear what he yelled to the police? He was yelling, ‘Don’t tase me bro.’ You know something, any time a white guy says the word ‘bro,’ he deserves to get tasered. … Another person was tasered today during a John Kerry speech. Not for being disruptive—I guess while listening to Kerry, the guy slipped into a coma.

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 granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)