If we could reverse the arrow of time and run the phrase "reproductive rights" past people in the 1950s it would doubtless raise a few eyebrows, because, as evidenced by the mass of humanity around us, reproducing doesn't seem to be a right that's been abridged.  But, as Arianna Huffington effortlessly demonstrates, those rights are code for an entirely different license, one that permits the unfettered right to destroy life, a separate, innocent life.

Huffington frames her argument as a foil for Clinton supporters who have pledged not to vote for Obama, and asks, with obvious astonishment:

One of the more annoying hallmarks of the Baby Boomer generation is its nearly limitless sense of entitlement, in particular because it's so obviously unearned.  In competition with that medal of dishonor is the desperation they bring to achieving a life sans pain or suffering, one that makes expansive demands without so much as a hint of justification. 

Although much of this arose out of the social pathology of modern liberalism, conservatives have not avoided the cultural undertow and seem at least complicit in the scheme to eschew responsibility for our self-generated woes, our crises-du jour--housing, health care, the financial markets, crime, social security, energy, and, of course, the war in Iraq.  Compounding the problem is the hyper-responsiveness of our politicians, who reflexively drag oil executives before congressional panels for a stern cross-examination.  The truth, in every such instance, is the first casualty.

To call this generation spoiled is far too charitable, but it's even more subtle than that:  The most culturally pernicious habit we've developed in the past forty years is the noxious notion that for every problem there is a government solution.  Within the broad bureaucratic shadow of government is the rich panoply of disincentives to assume responsibility for our individual decisions, and to understand that, regardless of how unpleasant it might be, when we confront our problems, new and entirely unknown internal resources are realized.

Conversely, there's not only an intellectual slovenliness that accrues when problems are solved on our behalf by the indifferent and impersonal hand of government, since we were missing in action during the confrontation, we become progressively disconnected with the effort.  That, in turn, encourages us to downgrade our aspirations, which will make further overtures from anonymous bureaucracies more enticing.  As you can see, it's a cyclical affair that conveniently legitimizes an ever-deeper intrusion by government and its retinue of non-profit self-help agencies.

The result is that this generation has become culturally pauperized, but also convinced of its self-importance and stellar status in the universe, all of which ensures that every 'crisis' will be met with a yet another series of corrections--to wit, encourage home-ownership by changing the definition of credit-worthiness, then knee-cap lending institutions for having the temerity to lend to those less well-qualified; demand the best health care, but recoil when presented with the tab; topple the Iraqi despot with the broad support of the American people and the backing of nearly three-quarters of the senate, then excoriate the president when he wants to finish the job.

Ours is clearly an emasculated, entitled, simpering culture of half-wits and cry babies, where authority has been stigmatized, morality demoted, and responsibility diffused.  It's a place where the Democrats have convinced us that race and gender are determinants of values, predictably resulting in Party infighting, with Obama, Clinton and their surrogates on hair-trigger.  Moreover, our public education system is an antiquated Leviathan run by unions with mediocrity as their goal, and the traditional "3-Rs" are replaced by racism, recycling, and reproduction, which has put a lock on the bet that the upcoming generation will faithfully replicate the Boomers' stupidities.

There is no easy out of this quagmire because the lessons the Boomers so cavalierly ignored were learned first-hand by our ancestors, and without a self-imposed mandate--which is unlikely--there's a self-perpetuating aspect to this that is a kind of promissory note ensuring that we'll live in a judgment-free society where cultural anarchy will flourish.

As is fitting the occasion, today we can read about distant and contemporary heroes, people whose sacrifices range from the common to the extraordinary, in battles of at once ferocious and horrifying.  Beyond the heroic actions of our military personnel are the broader themes that infuse Memorial Day, and those include freedom and its corollary, responsibility.

However, when we venture into those areas we inevitably find ourselves outside the political Demilitarized Zone of individual heroism, a place where we can all agree that individuals who have served, been wounded or killed, deserve our deepest respect and thanks.  That's because we often don't find universal agreement on whether a given war was justified, at least until it's over and the implications of the sacrifice are more apparent.

What's unique about our current war in Iraq is that it's imbued with the wholly misinformed notion that it was the result of neoconservatives who lied us into a war not worth fighting.  Let's begin with the irrefutable premise that every war, from the Spanish-American War, which was arguably the most popular war in our history, to World War II, was rife with contention about its merits, and voices across the political spectrum made the case that each of them wasn't in America's best interest.  However, once they were joined, the vast majority stood behind the mission, which raises the issue of those who support our troops in Iraq, but not the mission (i.e., winning)--more on that anon.

We can perform the cultural forensics on the ramp-up to the war, but suffice it to say that by broad margins in Congress and across America, this was deemed a necessary war.  Beyond the absence of WMD--which intelligence reports indicate Hussein could have easily reacquired--all that changed is it's duration and the special challenges we've been obliged to face, which is to say it's no different than most wars we've fought.

Which brings us to the core of our civic conundrum:  Given the obvious incapacity for Americans to see through the short-term pain of war in Iraq to the larger goal of an Iraq with a fledgling democratic structure and the stability it would bring to the region, can we contemplate any war they could support?  Curiously, when former President Clinton launched his war in Bosnia--which was not approved by the United Nations--the left sat silently by as the bombs dropped, and after more than decade, we're still there.

There's something decidedly unflattering about those who say they support the troops but not the war, which is akin to supporting fire-fighters but not their goal of suppressing fires.  It's an intellectually antiseptic way of skirting the issue of whether winning--a word you'll rarely hear from our brethren on the left--is as important as merely caring about our troops.  When they tell us they want the U.S. to leave Iraq "responsibly" they never discuss the post-withdrawal environment and the vital obligations Americas has once it's committed itself to war.

For two distinctly different views of patriotism--the civic muscle that undergirds sacrifice in war--we turn first to E.J. Dionne, who begins with some lucid counseling by stating that "progressives should not assume that patriotism is somehow a bad thing, akin to jingoism or nationalism."  If that seems like the low-hanging fruit of the larger argument, it's because, as Dionne knows, the left begins with a deficit in the realm of patriotism, and the lapel flag pin issue is just a symptom of it.

Behind that manifestation is the left's reticence to project American power--read, values--because it's never been completely comfortable with them, in large part because liberals habitually highlight our foibles and missteps, domestically and internationally.  That's not a strong foundation from which to argue that intervening in Europe or Korea or Iraq for that matter, are worth our blood and treasure.

That's why the central line of Dionne's argument focuses on Senator Obama's call for national service, a laudable if somewhat anemic characterization of raw patriotism.  It conveniently avoids those unpleasant decisions that accompany profound differences among nations, the kind that can lead to war.  But agnosticism in the realm of foreign affairs is what led to the slaughter of 40 million people in World War II, which, historians agree, might have been avoided by stopping Hitler as he moved his army into the Rhineland in March of 1936.  Indeed, it's that banal shibboleth about war being a last resort that has needlessly caused the death of millions.

For contrast, we turn to Arnold Garcia, writing in The Philadelphia Inquirer, who describes the 1944 battle of Rapido in Italy, which, he correctly concludes was a just cause, despite the horrible losses.  There are countless other examples of engagements that detractors might have justifiably considered unworthy of our efforts, from Tarawa in the Pacific to the war in Iraq. 

But despite misgivings, whether in advance of a war, or in the case of Iraq, throughout the war, there's both an intellectual dishonesty and a conspicuous absence of honor in arguments that call for a premature withdrawal.  Not merely because it would sully the sacrifice of those who died for the cause, and not only because it would leave a strategic vacuum which Iran would instantly fill, but because America's reputation as the world's unequivocal champion of freedom is at stake.

You won't hear that asserted by the likes of Dionne, or Obama for that matter, because it's been written out of their political script, which was authored by the hard left.  That's truly unfortunate because the world is approaching a kind of geopolitical tipping point, where the arguments in favor of autocracy--viz., China and Russia--are again being joined.  It's against that backdrop that America's values of freedom, underwritten by the threat of force, must play a strong role, because so much is at stake.

The central predicate of modern liberalism is that more government is better.  Underlying that premise and providing its political momentum is the cynical notion that certain people are less capable of providing for themselves.  Indeed, in the left's view, some--perhaps many--people are congenitally helpless, which justifies its vision of an America with a multi-tiered safety net.

Within this thicket of convoluted reasoning is the misinformed collectivist idea that it takes a village of bureaucrats to survive.  In that context, the poor are permanently consigned to lives of economic despair, despite the fact that numerous studies have demonstrated that the majority achieve entrance into the middle class after about a dozen years of hard work.  There is a numbing insincerity to the left's desperation to 'help' those in need, not merely because it's based on the smarmy assumption that demographics, ethnicity, and gender define aptitude, skills, and work ethic, but because it's so transparently politically motivated.

They don't call it socialism any more, but if you listen to Sens. Obama and Clinton, much of their rhetoric and policy proposals share the same political pedigree.  It's confiscatory taxation, burdensome regulation, centralized governance, an embrace of bureaucracy only a Soviet could love, and a habitual dependence upon the judiciary to muscle through rulings that can't be achieved legislatively. 

What's most disturbing is how well received it is by the media, which deftly repackages it in ever more palatable ways, for easy consumption by the masses.  With calculated aid from our public school system and academia, is it any wonder that more Americans than ever are warming up to the idea of a national health care plan?  The aggregating of disparate problems, coalescing them into a form that makes denying them a kind of civic heresy, creates a robust, if wholly unsubstantiated sense of legitimacy for the endless list of programs to redress them.

The reason it's so successful is that it's imperceptibly progressive, which is how you rewire a culture to ultimately accept a goal it would otherwise find abhorrent.  We didn't suddenly wake up accepting partial birth abortion, it was a long and degrading road, which began with the corrosive myth that sex is recreational, not sacred.  You can run through the left's entire platform and you'll find the same mechanism at work:  They just baby-step their way into our civic lives, and the next thing you know, God and religion are exempt from schools (and Christianity is evil), guns themselves cause crime, it's fine for adolescents to have sex as long as they have mastered condom etiquette (they're going to anyway, remember), those with financial means didn't work for it, and, of course, America has caused as many problems in the world as it's solved.

None of this would resonate with the electorate 45 years ago, but the fact that has achieved a perverse kind of traction demonstrates that with cultural acquiescence, just about anything is possible.

An article in The Gazette, the local paper here in Colorado Springs, features a front-page article on 5th congressional district Democratic delegates.  It prompted the following letter to the editor from ClearCommentary:

For those who lack a historical memory of the Democratic Party, presidential candidate Barack Obama might seem like the quintessential selection for the nomination ("A Look at Some Local Delegates," May 21).  However, for people who have an understanding of the party of Truman, Kennedy, and Jackson, it's painfully evident that, as the National Review reported, Obama is the most liberal member of the senate.

This is a senator who supports a total ban on handguns and indictments of gun manufacturers, who supports partial birth abortion, a practice that titan Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan called "infanticide," who has pledged to raise corporate taxes, and, crucially, is on record stating he would sit down, without pre-conditions, with the leaders of Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela. 

Delegates Mike Maday and Lynn Young seem representative of Obama's supporters.  Although Maday, a student volunteer for George McGovern, a 1972 presidential candidate who lost in a landslide, believes Obama "will have broader appeal than McGovern," he's actually a carbon copy of him, most importantly in naive views about appeasing dictators.  Young is a former volunteer at Planned Parenthood and a sexual education curricula writer who is clearly in the thrall of Obama-mania:  "There is something larger than party politics happening here."  I wish she'd tell us what it is because Obama is an arch liberal who has never challenged the smug assumptions of the hard left and, desipte his repeated invocations about bipartisanship, has no record to support it.

It was Truman who stated that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."  And, who can forget Jack Kennedy's pledge that America will "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of freedom."

If you can't imagine Barack Obama making similar assertions it's because he's a member of the new Democratic Party, which seems to have forgotten its laudible past and has adopted a foreign policy that apologizes for America's alleged sins and looks forward to presidential level meetings with despots.  As such, he's clearly out of step with mainstream Americans.

Senator Obama's speech yesterday concerning America's energy consumption, which would be better described as a lecture, reprised the theme we'll see more of as November approaches, which is the left's love of international consensus.  He argued that driving our SUVs and keeping our homes at 72 degrees is simply no longer going to be accepted by the rest of the civilized world; that's always followed by the comparative statistic that although we're a small percent of the world's population, we use a disproportionate percentage of its energy.

Well, before we open our collective veins in a warm bath we should also note that the United States produces 36 percent of the world's wealth, something you'll never hear from a liberal.  Moreover, you'll never hear them state that the world should first express its thanks for America's role in two world wars and for expunging Soviet communism.  We could add to that mix the fact that Americans are among the most generous people per capita, donating $245 billion to charity in 2006.

But none of that advances the left's goal of flattening America's profile on the world stage, or of using such canards as global warming to achieve goals it can't otherwise politically achieve.  They are also determined to inhibit what they see as America's imperialist instincts, nationalist hubris, and hegemonic designs.

None of this has any more substance than other liberal fictions that are meticulously crafted for a dark political purpose, but they are a prelude to their goal of imposing international 'law' on America.  Indeed, the Obamas of the world see America as ripe for right-sizing, for emasculating its Wilsonian beliefs that democratic principles are at once self-evident and universal, which are embarrassments for them, and, which is why wearing a flag lapel pin is a form of civic torture.

The global warming debate may be cooling but you would never know it by the way in which Obama--and McCain with his love of 'cap and trade'--seems determined to hobble the U.S.  Curiously, the Oregon Institute of Science & Medicine just announced that it has the signatures of 31,000 scientists attesting to the statement that humans aren't, in fact, responsible for climate change.  That's 15 times the number of scientists as the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which the left routinely lionizes as the gold standard. 

Mr. Obama's argument for America to fall passively into line with the so-called international community can be linked to his previous comments about rural white folks who turn to guns and religion out of frustration--it's those folks, the common man, the freedom loving, culturally unalloyed individual, who are in his cross-hairs.  Those are the 'conspicuous consumers' who still think of money when you mention 'green,' who are baffled by the phrase 'carbon neutral,' and who think that 'gun control' takes two hands.

It's curious that upon closer scrutiny it's Obama and his liberal brethren who want hegemony over America with their own form of laws and regulations, those derived from the forced consensus of the 'global community.'  Ideological permissiveness, or to use their pet phrase, 'diversity,' is reserved for those whose beliefs neatly comport with the left's vision of a world under the rule of International Law, where individualism is obsolete, where freedoms are doled out in pre-set measures, and where ownership of money and land is overseen by an unelected committee.

They won't say that, of course, but astute observers can make credible inferences from Obama's speeches that bring you to those same conclusions.  And, despite his admonition to leave his wife alone, Michelle has inserted herself into this campaign and so her newly found pride in America is fair game for critics, as are her research papers from college, which have a decidedly Marxist tinge to them.

In the past year, the picture of Obama as clearly outside of the mainstream of traditional American thought, has become ever more apparent and stands in stark contrast to McCain, who appeals to Independents and conservative Democrats just as well as he does Republicans.  Obama may one day understand that you can't win that broad middle swath of American voters by scolding them about their energy consumption--indeed, it's kind of un-American.

One of the most profound criticisms of the recent 4-3 California Supreme Court decision overturning Proposition 22--which states that marriage is between a man and a woman, and which passed with 61.4 percent of voters--is that it affirms that our judiciary hasn't advanced from its post-modern activist roots which gave us the baleful Roe v. Wade decision.

Unlike arguments by liberals, which give the art of nuance a bad name by suggesting that an evolving culture justifies judicial activism, the more damning product of this decision is that it's an abrogation of the will of the people.  But it also opens the door to a nearly limitless potential for extrapolation of constitutional precepts based on "evolving" community standards.

For the jurisprudential analysis, spend some time reading Ed Whelan's work at the Ethics & Public Policy Center. 

Justice Marvin Baxter, who wrote the dissenting opinion, succinctly summed up the key issue when he wrote that the court

...does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice.

Apropos of the issue of the judicial ambiguities that these decisions may spawn, Baxter also questioned whether a future "activist" court might look at this opinion and

...conclude, on the basis of a perceived evolution in community values, that the laws prohibiting polygamous and incestuous marriages were no longer constitutionally justified.

Indeed, George Will once asked a hostile panel of colleagues to tell him by what principled and non-arbitrary argument could those supporting same-sex marriage deny the same right to polygamists and supporters of incest?  His opponents were incensed and used the polemical equivalent of anti-aircraft fire to deflect his attack, but never provided a substantive response.

Beyond the irrefutable fact that judicial activism is tantamount to creating law, and an affront to our legislative branch of government, the defense of a constructivist approach to judicial decisions is that maintains a faithful--read, meaningful--connection to our Constitution, which is to say, the ideas upon which our Republic was founded.

That's important, because although our nation was founded on English Law, there are many crucial differences, and it's axiomatic to observe that America's tripartite system of governance, with its insistence upon the separation of powers, is unique in the world.  That symmetry is both resilient and susceptible to erosion over time, and when an activist judiciary is left unchecked, as it has been for nearly fifty years, it begins to degrade the principles and underlying values upon which they're founded.

Although liberals nationwide are celebrating, Senator Obama's response was more cryptic, blithely noting that he “respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage.”  We concur that states should be the arbiters, but in the legislature--or through constitutional amendments or referenda--not in the judiciary, where a few unaccountable, unelected judges can render decisions that negate the will of the people.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the benefit of political candor is that it doesn't require a precise memory.  Telling the truth in a forthright way that avoids the art of nuance wins votes.  In contrast, people instantly recognize when candidates tap dance around previous pronouncements to recast ill-considered opinions in a more favorable light.

Today is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel and President Bush delivered remarks to Knesset, which included the following:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared:  ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

You will recall that Senator Obama pledged to unconditionally enter talks with the world's dictators, including Cuba's Castro and Iran's Ahmadinejad.  Yet, he has the temerity to deny his own assertions, responding to the president with the following desperate revision:

Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy — to pressure countries like Iran and Syria.  George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.

Well, Obama has, indeed, stated that he would "engage" with terrorists, because that is precisely what the Iranian regime constitutes.  Notice the glaring distinction between liberals who are always running from their records on national security and conservatives, who are pleased to tell you that Iran must be confronted--militarily, if necessary--to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power.

There are countless stories during World War II of diplomats who yearned to negotiate with Hitler, convinced as they were that their unique powers of persuasion would create a sea change.  As John Bolton cogently argues in his book about the State Department, Surrender Is Not An Option, there's a pathology among career diplomats which begins with the predicate that the opposing nation is superior and that the goal for the diplomat is to aggressively inhibit America's influence and power projection.

Although Obama's vaunted intelligence and adroit oratorical skills are admirable, they carry the usual liability, a foible that naively encourages him to rush in where angels fear to tread.  He wouldn't be the first to think that good faith and a willingness to reach consensus can carry the day.  That's a richly obtuse pedigree which has its modern roots in Neville Chamberlain, and whose modern example is Jimmy Carter, who bungled his way along the foreign policy trail with North Korea and ended his disastrous presidency with the Iranian hostage crisis.

With assistance from Republicans, American voters will be reminded of Obama's pledge to schedule coffee klatches with the world's despots, because a candidate's words do matter, regardless of how deftly they rework them to suit circumstances.

To wit, the 2006 mid-term elections began a trend, one unthinkable just half a dozen years ago, and that is an incremental moderating of America's historically conservative instincts.  Indeed, polls show that those calling themselves conservative has changed from 37 percent just four years ago to 31 percent, and the downward trend continues apace.

Concurrently, the nonjudgmental, mushy middle is increasing, due, in part to the anemic voices of real conservatives, which have been muted in the past few years.  That may be due to their wholly misguided attempts to act like liberals on key domestic legislative initiatives--i.e., the prescription drug benefit, environmental issues, and a smattering of social and judicial concerns--but there is also the less detectable phenomenon of elected officials falling sheep-like into line with electoral expectations.

As we've argued, in our culture, which is effectively unmoored from traditional values and where, thanks to our liberal elite establishment, judging others is proscribed, making the case for conservatism is a decidedly uphill climb.  Indeed, the civic trend seems to be one in which government has the solutions, and where redistribution of wealth is justified by artfully crafted entreaties to class warfare disguised as 'fairness.' 

For those who cherish the freedoms that naturally accrue from lower government intrusion--read low taxes and regulations--it's a daunting time to be alive.  Making the argument that the vast majority of our nation's history stands in stark contrast to the massive federal bureaucracy which metastasizes with every passing year, and which is stifling our freedoms and shifting wealth to government, is made more challenging by our public school system, academia, the media, and entertainment, which constantly barrages us with messages that we're helpless without a robust government.

That, of course, leads to an emasculated citizenry, one conditioned to expect relief from every real or perceived ill, and where a solid income is a kind of birthright, not the result of hard work, talent, sacrifice, and risk.

As disquieting as it is, the truth is that the nation is moving towards the blurry middle, and although conservatives can and must continue to make the case for the virtues of smaller government, low taxes and regulation, they must also realize they're swimming upstream in a culture at odds with much, perhaps most of its agenda.

For reasons best left to future cultural anthropologists, many on the left are reticent to use the word 'victory.'  Whether it's achieving a victory in the form of energy independence or in Iraq, it just seems insurmountable to liberals.  Writing in today's Los Angeles Times, Jonah Goldberg links the tandem terrors of Gitmo with Yucca Mountain, arguing that nuclear energy and keeping terrorists secured are in America's best interest.

Let's set aside that the much vaunted French currently use nuclear energy for eighty percent of their nation's energy needs.  And, of course, history is replete with examples of enemy combatants being detained until the cessation of hostilities.  The fact that these are stateless foes without uniforms makes the argument even more compelling, save for those who instinctively characterize criminals as victims.

And, therein might be the solution to this conundrum, although it would be apparent to all but Democrats.  We can stipulate that justice for all is a healthy motto, but we would also add the codicil that it's reserved for U.S. citizens, something the left's anti-nationalism positively fears.  But against the backdrop of our engagement with radical Islam, retaining those enemy combatants seems like a low intellectual hurtle.  Yet the left, and a growing number of moderate Republicans, have concluded that Gitmo is evil incarnate.

Whether it's due a short-term memory problem or the absence of historical precedent, many Americans seem to have a stunted sense of justice, one that holds the U.S. to a disparate set of standards.  That takes us back to the propensity of liberals to have sympathy for criminals, which they seem to hold as dearly as any virtue.  In part, that's because the left habitually forgives pathologies such as patterned criminals.  Why?  Well, you see, it's not really their fault--they were children of alcoholic parents, abused themselves, living in a nation with systemic racism--the list is as tiresome as it is endless.

It's the palaver you can be assured is being piped into our children's brains at every turn in our public school system, along with condom etiquette and the virtues of recycling.  Never mind about the Federalist Papers, or Adam Smith, or Edmund Burke, not to mention enough mathematics so they can balance a check book.

So, the world's criminals, whether the common variety or totalitarian despots such as Saddam Hussein, are given a pass, as the left only grudgingly admits the world is better off without Iraq's dictator.  It's as though their determined to make the world safe for despots while hobbling our nation with an ineffective energy policy, one which forces bio-fuels and wind on the masses, when nuclear power is clean, safe, and effective.

This chapter in our nation's history will be a joy to write, because it's rare that an entire party is so unmistakeably guilty of ignorance, intellectual myopia, and moral indifference.  Living in this age, we have some slight idea of what Churchill must have suffered as he watched Hitler walk all over Europe.

A hallmark of bias in all its unsavory forms is the irony that attends its authors:  They often don't recognize they have it.  Add to the list of extant prejudices that of the elitist, and for the analysis we turn to Stanley Crouch, who blindly confuses education as a method of economic advancement and the academic, intellectual elites that often issue from the likes of Harvard--that is, Senator Obama and his wife, Michelle.

Crouch writes:

It has become commonplace for the predictable millionaire puppets of Fox News and their conservative talk radio counterparts to present themselves as the voices of the working class in combat with an educated elite from places like Harvard.

But beneath those cliches fester ideas that are deeply anti-democratic.

They are anti-democratic because they scoff at this basic truth:  Education is the key to social mobility in our country.

We can stipulate that education, be it at a community college for a technical skill or a university to study business, is the most reliable guarantor of economic success.  No one, certainly not the "millionaire puppets of Fox News and their conservative talk radio counterparts," would argue otherwise.  But there's a glaring distinction between education for advancement and the arch elitism and condescension so manifest in Mr. Obama.

It's not just his profound misjudgment about the working class folks in Pennsylvania, it's the collateral condemnation of their values that his criticism reflects.  Indeed, for elitists such as Obama, religion and guns--his twin targets in his remarks to a moneyed crowd in San Francisco--are mysterious anachronisms.  For them, the former can only be parsed as a political cudgel, something to be exploited a la Reverend Wright, and the latter is a key factor in their jaundiced view of gun owners who are in the grip of a Neanderthal complex, which the left loves to vilify.

That stated, there are poor, uneducated elitists just as there are Harvard graduate elitists, the key ingredient is the craven, willful propensity see others as beneath yourself due to differences in values, paramount among them is religion, because it so thoroughly inform all others.

Honest political differences create the civic tension that keeps our Republic healthy and vibrant.  However, when the debate is infused with moral and cultural animosities based on a disdain of others, we've lost that vital thread of commonality that makes America great.  Obama might still be able to convince voters he's not an elitist, but given his recent behavior, it will be an uphill challenge.

For those familiar with Shakespeare's Macbeth, the line uttered by Malcolm in Act I, Scene 4, is an apt commentary on Senator Clinton's candidacy:

...nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd
As 'twere a careless trifle.

Change the subject pronoun and you have the perfect exegesis on an exquisitely flawed campaign, one that began as a presumed coronation and ended with the grim reality of abject failure.  Yet, many commentators, even conservatives such as Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, have observed that as her candidacy headed for the rocks, a rare form of sincerity obtained. 

Indeed, she actually began enjoying herself and it showed, albeit inconsistently.  A hallmark of successful candidates is not only comfort in their own skin, but a sense of unbridled optimism, the sunny disposition of Ronald Reagan, the irrepressible confidence of Bill Clinton.  Yet for most of her campaign that easy manner and warm, personal charm seemed to elude Mrs. Clinton, until the very end, and by then it was far too late.

She seemed perennially preoccupied with demonstrating that she was a policy wonk, someone to be taken seriously, as though over-compensating for her womanhood.  In doing so she seemed more like the stern school principal than someone who might issue eloquent oratories from the Oval Office.  The lesson for her--alas, one learned in the wrong act of this drama--is that Americans easily suffer personality flaws and quirks, but they can't abide a scorn and they don't like candidates who seem overly concerned with attacking their opponents.

That's what led to her having an even 'favorable'-'unfavorable' ratio:  For every person who liked her there was one who truly disliked her, and whether it's a city council election or the race for the White House, you can't win on those numbers.  So Mrs. Clinton will have to pack up her bitterness and head back to the senate. 

Although it's clear that we're now witnessing the beginning of the end, at least she finally morphed from those cardboard characters she created throughout the campaign into a real person.  It may not be the profile of someone most Americans would want as president, but candor has its own virtues, even when it emerges just as the candidate's fate appears doomed.

With strong political cross currents working against Republican presidential candidate John McCain, and with Senator Obama cast as the 'transformational candidate,' the Illinois senator should be coasting to an easy victory.  The problem is that the headwinds of the Iraq war, the economy, and the housing and financial 'crises,' are issues that have been whipped into an emotional froth by the media, and forced to remain on stage far longer than productive for Democrats.

Americans have always been ambivalent about war because of the huge costs in blood and treasure.  But once we've engaged the enemy, with the notable exception of Vietnam, we've fought to victory.  That's largely a matter of political momentum, abetted by national pride, both of which are playing against Senator McCain.  That stated, by the same margin, Americans who say they want us out of Iraq, understand we must stay if leaving means a regional implosion.

Although President Bush is a lame duck, he's vowed to veto the politically motivated legislation that Congress will vote on today, to 'rescue' the housing markets.  For all his ill-advised tinkering with markets, Mr. Bush apparently understands that the housing market has already begun a broad correction, and the same goes for the economy and our financial markets, all well before the 'stimulus' checks were delivered.

Add to this mix the fact that Obama has obliged both Clinton and McCain by repeatedly proving he's a political novice, not to mention the glimpses we're getting of his wife, Michelle's remarkably divisive rants, and you have a formula for yet another Republican victory in November.

What's lacking in both Obama and Clinton is the kind of 'new Democrat' platform that President Clinton ran on.  Both these candidates have pledged higher corporate taxes, with Clinton vowing to "take" the profits from the oil companies, and oil company executives have responded by saying they'll have to dramatically reduce research and development:  Do Obama and Clinton think that will reduce our price at the pump?

In the arena of health care, they've pledged some version of a government sponsored program, which is a slow march towards European style socialist models, which can only drive up costs and inhibit access.  On social issues, both candidates are avowed supporters of partial birth abortion, which former Democratic intellectual heavy weight, Senator Patrick Moynihan correctly described as "infanticide."  Moreover, both have an elitist's understanding of the 2nd Amendment, which doesn't advance the ball beyond Senator Kerry's laughable duck hunting photo-op.

The list is endless, but it highlights the central facts in this election:  The left has two candidates who are mired in the old-style Democratic policies of race and gender, which oppose free markets that, as Jack Kennedy said, "raise all boats," are skittish about a robust military, and are convinced that interminable diplomacy is the best antidote for the likes of Iran's Ahmadinejad.

These are battles Republicans will be glad to join.

On a trip last week to Santa Fe New Mexico, we saw a bumper sticker that read, "Peace is Patriotic."  Beyond the fact that it's a transparent case of defensive politics, it tells you nothing about the nature of peace and how it is achieved.  Moreover, we're left to conclude that peace is a naturally occurring phenomenon in the world, and that all we must do is purchase it the way we would any other commodity.

Let's begin with the argument that patriotism itself has been caught in a civic and cultural crossfire.  The fact that its definition is more politically malleable than anyone might have suspected is disturbing.  For the left, love of country begins with holding it accountable in ways they would never consider for the world's dictatorships.  Indeed, they bring a level of moral scrutiny to America that is conveniently withheld for Castro's Cuba or Chavez' Venezuela.

But, beyond that, anyone who has the temerity to suggest that winning a war is patriotic and withdrawing prematurely isn't, is excoriated as bastardizing the term.  However, when a word is tortured into service and forced to take on the contextual coloration of the author's political motivation, it ceases to have the universal meaning it once had.  That's not to say one can't be patriotic and be critical of U.S. policy, only that a reflexive desire to join the chorus of criticisms against America, as many on the left have, seems at odds with the tenets of patriotism.  The latter admits our nations foibles but correctly asserts that, without qualification, America has been a force for good in the world.

That's why you rarely see liberal bumper stickers that include an American flag, because not unlike the lapel pin flag, the left is just not comfortable about flaunting their patriotism.  That's because they want to reserve the right to condemn America, which they seem to gleefully do at every opportunity.  Michelle Obama's recent comments are a case in point--no, not just the fact that she said this was the first time she was proud of her country, but her wholly inaccurate characterization of America as a nation that remains fundamentally flawed--paraphrased, but that's the core message.

That takes us to the 'peace' part of the bumper sticker.  That's another word that has different meanings for different people.  For the left, it's something that exists as surely as oxygen, and it's just as important.  For the right, it's something that's purchased at a price, often a very high price, and it's only guaranteed by those willing to make perpetual sacrifices.

That recalls another bumper sticker:  A B-52, which creates a kind of 'peace sign,' which reads:  "Peace Through Superior Firepower."  You see, for the right, belligerents are a timeless and noxious lot, whose amorality is imposed by fiat on those around them, whether it's a Stalin, a Kim Jong Il, or a Saddam Hussein.  The only thing stopping them is a superior power with a threat that is real.

Therefore, although 'peace' is something we should all strive for, it must be within a context that includes a candid reading of reality:  Whether it was Hitler moving his army into the Rhineland or Napoleon taking the Spanish peninsula, if there's no one there to stop them, they'll do it.

So, the left can expound on the virtues of peace, because it's a right purchased by the blood of our military over the decades.  But, when it comes to the practical matter of safeguarding the peace, it's best left to people who understand that it's a fragile thing that is only maintained by military might.

Do you think that's something Senator Obama truly understands?

As we're all aware, people's mastery of life's learning curves varies dramatically.  In politics, the variability is even greater, not just because they're unpredictable, but because with politics, the common sense we typically bring to routine challenges is often checked at the door.

That seems to be the case with the Democratic Party's approach to the Clinton-Obama conundrum.  Recall that the apparent reason for the super-delegates was to ensure a fully democratic outcome.  The real reason, of course, is to prevent a George McGovern from making it all the way to the nomination--read, gallows--and, in that regard, the super-delegates are a paradoxically un-Democratic phenomenon, especially for the party that lectured the nation in 2000 about fair elections.

On the cusp of two critical primaries--Indiana and North Carolina--the party is riven with indecision and anxiety, as well it should be.  The fraying of the Obama image and the emergence of unsightly contradictions and unconvincing explanations, juxtaposed with the notion of another dual-Clinton presidency and the reanimation of Whitewater, the Rose law firm billing records, Travelgate, Filegate, and a myriad other problems, has party leaders wringing their hands.

The current received wisdom is that if Obama maintains his lead--and, perhaps, even if he doesn't--he'll get the nod.  If he doesn't, the party will implode and the black vote will be a political meltdown with lasting implications.  Concurrently, many Democratic analysts are convinced Obama can't win against McCain, that recent revelations--including his remarkably clumsy responses--will haunt him like a bad performance in a major motion picture.

All of this seems corroborated by Obama's appearance on Sunday's Meet the Press, which was an extended interview that his campaign hoped would put all doubts to rest.  Instead, and despite the fact that Russert failed to address most of the problematic revelations of the past few weeks, Obama's performance was lackluster and his explanations unpersuasive.  The lengthier his explanation, the more eager he seems to acquit himself, and that comes off as politically unsophisticated, as though he doesn't quite understand the value of complete candor--the way McCain does.

He can ex