A few unconnected thoughts about the developments of the last little bit and the upcoming election.

•  How in the world was Mark Foley ever an issue?  That was an example of things working right.  A human being did something bad and he immediately resigned.  Who would you prefer the Gary Stubbs cheering guys or the Mark Foley firing guys?
• On a related note, there have been a lot of news stories about how evangelicals are deserting the GOP.  My theory is that is probably just a reflection of conservatives' anger over spending and immigration.  So many evangelicals are solid fiscal conservatives also.  There simply is no choice between the gay-loving, abortion-defending, ACLU Democrats and Republicans.  If the best the Democrats can do on religion is Barack Obama, they are in trouble.
• I wish there was something I could do for Rick Santorum.  He truly is a great hero, and a role model of mine.  I am incredibly impressed by the passion he has been speaking his convictions with when any other candidate would have been pandering.  I know that he must be extremely frustrated to be running without an opponent. I hear that this guy named Casey is on the ballot against him, but nobody knows what he stands for and he is rarely at public events.
• Isn't it ironic that the most hard-core leftist set of Democrats ever may gain control of Congress by running complete moderates in almost every important race.  Bob Casey, Jim Webb, Tester, Harold Ford Jr., and lots of House Candidates might be mistaken for Republicans if they ran against Arlen Specter.
• Losing the Senate is not an option.  Conservative judges have got to be confirmed for the next 2 years.  If the Dems keep on filibustering and McCain doesn't support the constitutional option, I don't see how he has a chance at the primary nod.  Besides, John Paul Stevens might not make it 2 more years.  That is a long time when you are pushing 90.
• We need to make sure that the message is very clear after the election, if we lose the House.  You lost because you spent too much, because you grew the government in a way that would have brought tears of joy to LBJ's eyes, because McCain wanted amnesty, and because you were more concerned with power than principle!  Get back to the big, Reagan conservative, 1994, ideas.  Going moderate is not the answer.

This article caught my eye over on Fox news.  It is about the continuing violence committed by the peaceful adherents of Islam in France.  Go read it real fast.  You probably remember the month of car burning riots that these Muslim youth engaged in a while ago.  Now, they have taken to ambushing police, firemen, and rescue workers with stones and clubs. 
     "First, it was a rock here or there. Then it was rocks by the dozen. Now, they're leading operations of an almost military sort to trap us," said Loic Lecouplier, a police union official in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris. "These are acts of war."
    It is a well known fact that Muslims immigrants to France, and Europe as a whole, are unassimilated.  They are alienated, living in poverty-striken ghettos.  This is probably due to both the immigrants and Europe.  Europe does not have the melting pot tradition like America, and many of the Muslims have no intention of modernizing.
    Make no mistake.  This is one of Europe's gravest problems.  The Muslim birthrate dwarfs that of the declining European population.  With a continued influx of poor Muslims, a majority Islamic Europe is a distinct possibility.  
    Europe has two paths they can take.  The first is to immediately end all immigration and deport any Muslims who are causing problems.  Liberals will scream bloody murder.  But, Europe did not ask for this fight.  I think this is probably their best option, although certainly an unsavory one.  The immigrants that they have seem to be nothing but trouble.  In contrast to the Hispanic immigrants to the US who work hard, mind their own business, and enthusiastically embrace America, Europe's Islamic immigrants burn cars, attack police, and are unemployed drains to the welfare state.
    The second option is an aggressive integration scheme.  They would force Muslims to integrate into their culture, move out of the ghettoes, outlaw any expression of extreme Islam, crack down hard on gang activity, and once again shut off all immigration.  School kids would be required to take extensive assimilation courses, learning about the history and civics of each country and do things like community service to foster a sense of community and belonging.  They would also have to reform their welfare state to boost their economy and drag these people out of poverty.  This path would be harder and would have no guarantee of success.  If it succeeded, however, it would be a kinder way of dealing with the problem.  The ironic thing is that by dealing gently with these immigrants, Europe would commit to billions of dollars and years worth of work to fix a problem that was the immigrants' in the first place.
    In truth, I don't have the answers.  All I know is that Europe's present course in unsustainable.  They can either grow a backbone now, or they can get used to living like the Israelis.  Islam came within a few battles of conquering Europe in the middle ages; it may just conquer Europe now through the pathetic weakness of the Europeans, their political correctness, moral relativism, and naive goodwill.  Wake up, Europe!!!

    A few days ago, I posted a story about Micael Monsoor, the Navy SEAL who threw himself on a grenade to save his squad.  Iraq the Model has a story about an Iraqi who died in much the same way.  The terrorists cannot win in Iraq because of Iraqis like this man.  But they can win because of the cowardice of Americans like this.
     
    "There is one video I wish I can find on the web. It's a short video that was shown on al-Iraqiya last Friday evening and was replayed several times that night.

Until I can find a way to get a copy of the video and put it up I will try to share with you a description of what I saw…

It's about a police station somewhere in Iraq, the place was about to be hit by a suicide bomber riding a vehicle laden with explosives.
The driver approaches the entrance to the station which is surrounded by concrete walls. Several police officers open fire from their ak-47's on the incoming suicide bomber but he keeps closing in.

As the vehicle passes through the gate and past the last barricade all of the officers run away seeking shelter…except for one extraordinary man.
One police officer held his position and was still standing in the way of the terrorist and kept on firing his rifle at the windshield until the vehicle was just meters from the officer, then…BOOM.
End of video….

I watched the video over and over again and my amazement grew with every time I watched it…this is incredible…this is heroic…this is happening.

2 dead, (n) injured in a car bomb. That's what we would read in the news next day and then someone would come to make a body count and make a study about the human cost of the war and list the two men from the two extremes of this conflict, both as victims of the war!
So the policeman is a victim and the bomber too is a victim?…it sounds so cruel and unfair. A man who died to save his colleagues and a beast who killed himself to kill others cannot and must not be both counted as victims.
One is an anti-life criminal while the other is a hero, but on paper, some idiots describe them both as victims of the war.

Who knows?! Maybe there are some other idiots who count the 4,000 foreign terrorists whom al-Qaeda confessed were killed in Iraq as victims too!"

    Someday, I believe, Iraq will look back with gratefulness and awe to the bravery of all the policemen and soldiers who defended their freedom just like America looks back with awe on the courage of the patriots who left trails of bloody footprints at Valley Forge.  Freedom is not free.

    As a pro-family conservative, I care deeply about the health of America's families.  Without strong families, America will not raise strong citizens.  Lately, in the fight to ward off gay marriage, pro-family has been used to mean only opposition to gay marriage.  But, being pro-family is much more than that.  A belief in the necessity of real fathers is part of being pro-family.
     America has a deficit of fatherhood.  Single mothers account for around 30 percent of births nationwide.  A large number of children grow up with either no father or a dysfunctional father.  Let me point out that I am not criticizing single mothers.  Many of them are in that situation due to no fault of their own and would move heaven and earth to give everything to their kids.  They have my respect. 
     But, raising a child by yourself is not ideal.  It can put pressure on the amount of time you can spend with your children.  But, most importantly, every child, boy or girl, needs to have a man and a woman in their life.  Boys need a father to learn how to be a man and a mother to nurture them and teach them what women are like (I could say the same about sisters, but that is off topic.)  Girls desperately need the sense of protection a father affords.  They need to know that their daddy will beat up anyone bad guy who tries to hurt them.  They need a mother to teach them how to be a woman.  If either of the parents are missing, the child has a gap in their life that is very difficult, although not impossible to fill.
    Unfortunately, some kids that have a dad, do not have a father.  He does not do what is necessary to properly raise them.  He doesn't discipline them and teach them right from wrong.  He cares more about watching TV than giving them love and attention.  He does not provide an example by loving his wife and giving her honor.  
    Both of these problems need to be addressed.  The government can't really do much about either except remove obstacles to healthy marriage such as the marriage penalty and no fault divorce.  And besides, do we really want the government fixing marriage like they fixed poverty or the drug problem.  I didn't think so.  It is up to us; churches and communities to fight for healthy marriage.  But most of all it is up to us men.  We have to step up to the plate, put aside our own petty desires, and become real fathers.  That is one of the greatest things a man can do.  
      

This press release by Maj. Whip Roy Blunt details what a Democrat House will look like.  Don't let these liberals run our Congress, don't be a cut and run conservative.  VOTE! 

Conservatives have been talking about the liberal media bias for years.  We accept it as self-evident fact.  Most people probably agree, but some liberals still hold out that the media is actually slanted to the right!  Not just Fox News either.  Now we know that they are just delusional, but here is a rigorous scientific study with objective evidence to refute their crazy claims.  I think the only reason libs think the news is biased to the right is because they are so liberal that the news is more centrist than them.  Thus, they think it is biased against them.
    Looking through the study a few things are pretty evident.  First, the common knowledge about the media is correct.  If you were to ask any conservative to give a rough ranking on the right to left scale of prominent media institutions, they would get it correct.  It really is simple.  CBS is more liberal than ABC.  NY Times is more liberal than USA Today.  Fox News and the Washington Times are more conservative (and centrist!) than most of the others.  Nothing new here.
    The study compared the media to a hypothetical centrist member of Congress.  They determined an ideological rating by counting the number of times that a liberal cited liberal think tanks compared to conservatives ones and vice versa.  So, the more liberal think tanks you cite, the more liberal you are.  They controlled for many factors and if you doubt the validity of the study, go read it yourself.  I don't want to bore you with the gory details.
    So here are the rankings.  
    Newspapers:  Right-Washington Times, USA Today, Washington Post, NYT, news pages of Wall Street Journal-Left.  USA Today was most centrist and if you read both the W. Times and Post you would get balanced coverage.
   TV:  Right-Fox News special report, Newshour w/Jim Lehrer, CNN newsnight, Good Morning America, ABC nightly, NBC nightly, CBS nightly.  Fox News and Jim Lehrer were at the center.  CBS was way out in loony land.  They have about the same ranking as Joe Lieberman.
    Now keep in mind.  This is talking about ideological slant, not veracity of facts.  Basically, who did they portray more favorably.  For example, CBS would try to spin the current economy numbers to look bad.  They don't necessarily lie, but they give a disproportionate weight to what liberals have to say.
   Conclusions:  Keep on watching Fox.  They really are fair and balanced.  If you want a newspaper, get the Washington Times or USA Today. 

Here is the latest article I have written for the Georgia Guarddawg.  My privileged readers get the first look. 

While much of the world’s disease fighting attention is focused on AIDS in Africa, another disease, malaria, kills a million people each year—many of them young children. In September, the World Health Organization announced that it will encourage indoor spraying of DDT to prevent malaria. This sets up a clash between environmentalists and health officials over the use of the controversial pesticide.

    Widespread opposition to the use of DDT was first sparked in the 1960’s by Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. Environmentalists say that DDT is harmful to humans and weakens bird eggs. They have been successful in banning the chemical in the US, Europe, and many other nations. Many organizations such as Beyond Pesticides still strongly oppose its use.

    These bans have removed the most effective tool available for combating malaria. DDT is cheap and extremely effective. The US and Europe used it in the 1940’s to eliminate malaria. “Of the dozen insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT," says Arata Kochi, director of the WHO's Global Malaria Program. The question is not whether DDT can eliminate malaria—it does, but if it can be sprayed safely.

    UGA Ecology professor Alan Covich says, “the problem with DDT is that is was grossly misused.” Blanketing entire areas with DDT, which was the old approach, certainly eliminated malaria, but was unnecessary. A focused program of indoor spraying, as WHO has encouraged, will have significant impact on reducing malaria without serious health impact. “If used carefully, it could be an important tool,” Covich concluded.

    Many environmentalists oppose even limited spraying of DDT, however. Their emotional reaction to DDT supersedes the fact that no evidence exists showing limited spraying of DDT to be harmful to humans. Before the use of DDT was banned in the US, it went before EPA administrative law judge Edmund Sweeny in 1971 for a lengthy, 7 month hearing, involving 7,000 pages of testimony. Judge Sweeny concluded at the end of the hearings, “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic (embryonic development) hazard to man.” But despite all this evidence, pesticide opponents still oppose its use. While they live a life free of malaria in the US thanks to DDT, a million people in undeveloped countries die every year because DDT isn’t used. To add to the tragedy, 500 million people are infected every year, which wreaks havoc on these countries’ economies.

    Of course there are alternatives to DDT. Several other pesticides are available, stagnant pools of water can be removed to reduce mosquitos breeding grounds, and bednets can protect people while they sleep. But, all of these other methods are expensive—a major problem in impoverished Africa. While they can all be helpful in battling malaria, they won’t work by themselves. Malaria vaccines will not be available anytime soon either, despite a large amount of research and development work. DDT is quite simply the big gun in fighting malaria.

    America has to put the environmentalist overreaction to DDT in our past. Even if DDT is not perfect, spraying more aggressively with it will not kill a million people—malaria will. In the 1950’s, WHO led a campaign that removed malaria from the developed world, and parts of Asia and Latin America. Global health officials need to do the same thing today. For too long, inconclusive fears about the safety of DDT have been responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans. America needs to step forward and provide the global leadership necessary to promote responsible DDT spraying. Millions of lives hang in the balance.

For all the Repulicans out there who are thinking about staying home this November, who think that Republicans don't deserve their vote, who want to punish them for campaigning as conservatives and governing as cowards, I would like to remind you what happens if we lose this election.

If we lose the House:
-Amenesty for illegal aliens will probably pass.  House Republicans were the only people blocking this.
-President Bush may be censured.  I don't think the Dems have the guts to impeach him, but they will probably censure him and certainly investigate him unceasingly.
-Spending will probably increase.  Although both chambers have spent like drunken sailors, the House was a little less drunk than the Senate over the last 2 years.  That will change.
- Dems can always defund the war in Iraq if they choose.

If we lose the Senate:
-Say goodbye to conservative judges.  Almost every nomination will be sat on for 2 years.  Think about the Tom Daschle era where Miguel Estrada and company were shamefully denied a vote.  Any SCOTUS vacancy will be worthless, Dems will be calling the shots.
-Bolten doesn't have a prayer for confirmation.
-Ted "Swimmer" Kennedy and Dingy Harry "I got rich from my Senate Seat" Reid are in charge.

I am not trying to scare you or be alarmist.  I am simply laying out the consequences of your actions.  Quitting is never the way to win.  Handing control of our government to angry, extremist, Kossack-dominated, leftists isn't the way to win either.  So get out there and vote for the lesser of two evils; it's the way we play the game in the US of A.

...than to lay down his life for his friends.  John 15:13 

A great American Hero died Sept 29th.  Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor, a Navy SEAL, threw himself on top of a grenade to save his friends--his squad.  Please read the whole story here.  In an age where kids make punk sports stars with incredibly talents, but no character, into heroes, here is a true hero.

    As you can read in the story, his comrades said he never hesitated.  As the grenade bounced into the room where they were performing sniper cover, he saw the grenade and immediately threw himself on it.  He also must be an incredibly tough minded and bodied individual.  He failed to complete the living h-ll known as SEAL training the first time, but subjected himself to it a second time and passed.  That is determination.

    This is why we will win.  Evil will be defeated.  As long as America has incredible men of Michael Monsoor's quality, we can sleep safely at night.  That is why I do not buy the idea that we can't win.  We can!  Because we are better than them.  

    That is why there can not be a moral equivalence drawn between us and them.  When jihadists give up their life, it is to slaughter civilians like animals for their perverted idea of heaven.  When an American soldier lays down his life, he lays it down to give life and freedom to others.  When our enemies go to war, they fight to dominate and subject.  When America fights, we do so to defend and protect.  When we fight, we endanger our own lives to protect the lives of the innocent.  Do not tell me that we are morally equivalent, for we are not.  You are morally bankrupt.  If you cannot see see the difference, you are blind and morally bankrupt.  George Bush is not the world's biggest terrorist, you are an appeaser and apologist for evil.  

    I hope this beautiful story of heroism and sacrifice inspires you with a somber sense of gratitude and admiration for the many incredible soldiers protecting and defending our country.  American Soldiers. 
  

I have heard several people espouse the view that America should assure China and North Korea that we will supply South Korea and Japan with nukes if North Korea gets them.  This seems to me to be a smart move.  If China and Russia are balking at sanctions after a nuclear test has seemingly occured, we need something to up the ante.  China has no desire for either Japan or S. Korea to get nukes, so they will probably yank N. Korea's chain pretty hard to avert this.  Plus, in the unhappy event that N. Korea were to get a bomb, this would supply a more powerful deterrent than American nukes alone.  Pres. Bush cannot blink on this test, the elections may hang in the balance and more importantly, Iran is watching.

P.S.  Sorry it has been so long since I have posted.  I had tests over the last week and that ate up most of my time.  Hopefully I will be able to write several times next week.   

I wanted to give, in order of priority, my view of the issues and qualifications that are essential for the next president.  Feel free to post your list as a comment.

1.  Solid as titanium on the GWOT.
2.  Will beat our wayward Congress into submission on spending.  (Without looking like he is stealing kid's lunches.)
3.  Has the leadership, executive skills, and charisma to get things done (and get elected).
4.  Will appoint originalist, conservative judges who will interpret the constitution strictly.
5.  Will be able to reform the tax system and entitlements. 

If I can get all that, I am willing to compromise on the rest in order to keep Hillary out of the White House.

Conservatives and a large section of the American public have given Congress and Pres. Bush a lot of grief for their failures on immigration.  With an election coming up, though, the time has come to reevaluate and give some credit where it is due.
First, congratulations to Senator Frist, the Republican Senate, and the House, for passing border fencing.  It may not have been everything we wanted, but it also wasn't the amnesty bill that would have been a disaster.  Conservatives were hammering over and over for Congress to pass what they could agree on.  Keeping border security hostage in order to pass a guest worker and amnesty bill would have been cowardly and wrong. 
   Next, we need to cut Bush some slack.  In case you haven't been paying attention, he has ended catch and release, sent the National Guard to the border, is in the process of doubling our border patrol, and will sign the fencing bill.  It takes time to fix a neglected border.  It will not happen over night.  We are already catching more people coming over the border.  There have also been some federal raids going on to deport some illegals.  Remember, Bush can't just wave a wand and secure the border.  He is dependent on Congress to allocate money and it takes time to hire and train quality border agents, build fences, and develop infrastucture.  He also could have insisted on a comprehensive bill, instead of compromising, which would have effectively killed any progress.
  Next, pay attention to who got all this done.  It was REPUBLICANS!  For all of you people who are passionate about immigration, sitting out this election in protest is not in your best interest.  3/4 of senate Democrats voted against border fencing along with a large majority of house dems.  How does electing more Democrats further your goals?  It doesn't.  Your only chance is to get involved in the primary process and elect more conservative Republicans, or even better replace Democrats with Republicans.  And remember, amnesty is not dead.  The senate amnesty bill was a Democrat bill with enough Republicans crossing over to allow it to pass.  If we lose the House to Democrats, I can assure you that an amnesty bill will likely pass both chambers and will probably be signed by Pres. Bush.  The prospect of 12 million new majority Democrat voters is just too tempting to pass up.  So, if you oppose amnest get your butt out there and work to defeat some Democrats.
    Finally, I want to address the complaint that Congress wasn't listening.  America was screaming its head off that we didn't want amnesty and we wanted the border secured, but no one seemed to be listening.  It's funny how elections change all that.  The number of votes for border security increased dramatically from the first House bill to the second.  The number of votes in the Senate went from around 45 for the Isakson-security first amendment to over 70 for this fencing bill.  That is an amazing victory for immigration security proponents.  Even if Congress was slow to get around to it, they eventually listened.  So, don't get too discouraged and disillusioned.  Republicans aren't perfect, but they are a heck of a lot better than Democrats.  The answer is not to elect more liberal Democrats, it is to elect more conservative Republicans!   So let's reward the Republicans this election for being the only ones willing to stand up for border security.

UGA's liberal leaning paper, The Red and Black, weighed in on the vandalism of the Georgia Guarddawg's distribution bins this morning.  Check the post below if you haven't read the story yet.  
 
The editorial board said that "Guarddawg publisher David Kirby should not be so surprised more than 1,200 copies of his paper were stolen from their bins Thurday night.  The ultra-conservative paper pushes itself so far to the right that incidents like this are bound to occur."  STOP!  Athens is home to plenty of quite liberal publications, but conservatives never steal and vandalize them.  Besides, since when should a political viewpoint expect criminal activity from its opponents just because they express a strong viewpoint.  

The editorial continues, "Although it doesn't justify the vandal's actions, The Guarddawg should examine the reasons why someone would commit that crime."  OK, I get it.  We just had a thousand dollars worth of newspapers stolen by some liberal punk and this is a time for introspection.  We need to look deep within ourselves and ask the left's favorite question, "Why do they hate us?  Why?  What have we done to anger them?  How can we change our ways so that we can gain the acceptance and favor of our opponents?"  Sound familiar?  We are supposed to understand why terrorists hate us also.

Next, the editorial analyzes free speech.  The Guarddawg has been calling these liberals out for opposing our right to free speech by distribution of our newspapers.  The object of stealing our newspapers was to shut down our expression and prevent others from reading our views.  But, apparently the editorial board doesn't think that, "But his (Kirby's) free speech was not affected with the stealing of his paper (huh?).  Free speech is something regulated by the government, not random acts of theft."  Last time I checked, free speech was an inalienable human right given by God; not something regulated by the government.  Really this is rediculous, the whole object of stealing the newspapers was to prevent us from speaking to the students of UGA.  The criminals who stole our paper obviously do not support free speech and they undeniably infringed on the free speech of the paper.

And then the editorial concludes by once again shifting the blame from the liberal bums to the Guarddawg's outspoken conservative views, "The managers of the Guarddawg shouldn't point fingers to the left, or the right, but instead should examine why someone would want to steal their publication."  Unfortunately for the dimwitted editors of the Red and Black the "managers of the Guarddawg" already know why our papers were stolen.  Liberals were so afraid of the clear conservative message that we were broadcasting that their hate for us overwhelmed their fear of the law.  Someone wanted to steal our newspapers because liberals are cowards and have no ideas to combat conservative ideas.  

  We refuse to become the guilty party in this crime.  We will continue broadcasting the conservative message, driving liberals to insanity and criminal activity, and WINNING the battle of ideas.  Liberals need to own up to the criminal elements in their midst and quit shifting blame. 

UPDATE:  We will be distributing a bunch of newspapers tomorrow, which will provide the opportunity for lots of students to see what caused all the controversy.  Hopefully many will be wondering what is so "ultra-conservative" about Free speech, 9/11 memorials, candidate interviews, and a President Bush on Islamic Fascism.   

Besides blogging here at townhall, I also write for the University of Georgia's only conservative student newspaper, the Georgia Guarddawg.  The Guarddawg shines a conservative light every month into the darkness of liberal dominated academia.  Apparently, we hurt some eyes with our last issue.
    
    Liberal students vandalized six out of our seven bins and  stealing around $1000 worth of newspapers.



The vandals were either ignorant or attempting to be seen as extreme right wing fanatics.  As you can see the insults they threw at us included, "communist," "too liberal," and "homodawg."
  
 

To add irony to the situation, the issue of the Guarddawg that these punks tried to censure was an issue supporting free speech at UGA's rival Georgia Tech. 

     I guess vandalism is just engrained in the strategies of liberals...think about all the slashed tires and broken windows of the '04 Bush campaign.  Since the bankrupt liberal religion has no ideas to put forward, they have to try to silence the ideas of the right.

    We really have to hand it to these vandals though.  They may singlehandedly double our readership and prove to be our best fundraising draw.  They also earned us press exposure in the AJC, the Athens Banner-Herald, Redstate, National Review, 750 WSB, the Macon Telegraph and others.  So, while we are angered that these intolerant leftists decided to steal all these papers, in the long run this will be a big boost.  It also confirms that we are doing our job.  If we are not ruffling feathers and getting people angry, we need to pick a new thing to do.

The fact still remains that we lost a lot of money and newspapers, though.  We want to capitalize on the attention we get and get a bunch of new papers printed.  We have some money on hand, but we could definitely use some help.  If you have already given to Rick Santorum, Michael Steel, the Republican congressional committee and other worthy candidates and have some money left over, we would appreciate your support as we try to get our message out to the next generation of leaders.

You can donate or just read the issue that got the liberals hackles up at the link below. 
 
http://www.guarddawg.com/support.php

I've been noticing an interesting trend among Democrats over the last two years or so.  They equivocate the war on terror with killing bin Laden.  An example of this was in the Meet the Press Casey-Santorum debate.  Santorum was talking about Islamic fascism and Casey, trying to sound smart, said that while Santorum was holding a seminar on whether to say Islamic fascist or terrorist he wanted to find bin Laden and kill him.  You can probably remember the same idea coming from Kerry in '04.  Iraq had drawn resources away from Afghanistan.  If we had focused on Afghanistan we could have killed bin Laden by now.
   I think this shows a few things.  To begin with, it is a backhanded compliment to Pres. Bush's handling of the war on terror.  The failure to capture or kill bin Laden is one of the biggest failures so far.  Not a failure to prevent a dirty bomb, not a failure to prevent a shopping mall attack, not a failure to conquer Afghanistan.  Just a failure to capture bin Laden.  
   It also shows the Democrats cannot be trusted to fight the war on terror.  Do they really think that capturing bin Laden will win the War on Terror?  It will certainly be a psychological victory and will appeal to America's desire for vengeance, but tactically I just don't see how it will do much.  Bin Laden just isn't very effective anymore.  His biggest asset was money and he is spending all his time trying to stay alive now, not financing operations.  Furthermore, I thought Democrats were too sophisticated to desire something so plebian as revenge.  Our war is greater than bin Laden and if Democrats don't understand that, they have no right to be in control of our war. 
     Finally it shows that Democrats pander.  I know...old news.  Democrats know that the inability to capture bin Laden is a sore spot on the American voter and they are happy to exploit it.  If they want to make it a political issue, they need to tell us what they will do differently that will allow them to capture bin Laden.  Will they interrogate captured combatants more aggressively to get intel on his location?  Will they move troops in to Pakistan?  Will they gather human intellingence and attempt to get moles into al-qaeda differently?  Will they pull resources away from capturing mid-level islamic extremist operatives to seek bin Laden?  What will they do differently?  I'm not holding my breath waiting for answers.
   Listen closely next time you hear a Democrat talking about terror.  You very well may hear them simplify the war on terror down to capturing bin Laden--their obsession.