An especially good offering this week from Coulter Nation's namesake:

FREE THE FITZGERALD ONE!

by Ann Coulter
January 31, 2007

Conservatives often ask why so many Republicans go native when they get to Washington, D.C. The answer is: Because you don't defend them when they come under relentless attacks from liberal hatchet men.

Lewis Libby did what you wanted. He didn't place secret phone calls to reporters revealing classified intelligence programs. He supported the war on Islamic fascists. He didn't try to raise your taxes like James Baker III. And he has loyally served Dick Cheney, the man conservatives secretly wish were president.

And now he's on trial for — at worst — misremembering who first told him that future reality show contestant Joseph Wilson was sent on a boondoggle to Niger by his wife, Valerie Plame.

The way Libby remembered it, NBC's Tim Russert was the first one to tell him. But the way Russert remembers it, he didn't tell Libby about Wilson's wife. (And the way Wilson remembers it, he was sent to Niger by Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.)

Try this: Who told you Wilson was sent to Niger by his wife? Who told you a bipartisan Senate panel concluded that Joe Wilson was lying when he denied that his wife had sent him to Niger? While we're at it, who was the first person to correct you on your pronunciation of "Niger"?

I don't remember, either — and I'm not running a war.

The exact same people who are now demanding prison for Libby for not remembering who told him about Plame are the ones who told us it was perfectly plausible for Bill Clinton to forget that Monica Lewinsky repeatedly performed oral sex on him in the Oval Office. Even if chubby Jewish brunettes aren't your type, be honest: Which of the two events would stand out more in your memory?

Perjury is intentionally swearing to something you know to be untrue — not misremembering what later appears, on balance, not to be the truth.

Here are some simple illustrations. If Clinton had been asked how many sexual encounters it took for him to remember Monica's name (six) and he got the answer wrong, it would not be perjury since, like Monica's name, it's an easy thing to forget.

If Clinton had been asked whether he talked to Rep. Jim Chapman and then to Rep. John Tanner, or to Rep. Tanner and then to Rep. Chapman while Monica was performing oral sex on him in the Oval Office and he got the answer wrong, that would not be perjury because it's not relevant to the investigation. (Correct answer: Chapman, then Tanner.)

But when Clinton was asked under oath — in a case brought by Paula Jones under the law liberals consider more sacrosanct than any passed in the 20th century, Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act: "Mr. President ... at any time were you and Monica Lewinsky alone together in the Oval Office?" and he answered, "I don't recall," that was perjury.

Now take the question: "Who first told you fantasist Wilson was sent to Niger by his wife?" Unless it actually was Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise — the answer to that question is not going to be perjurious. No matter how many witnesses swear they told Libby first, if Libby honestly believed it was Russert, he didn't commit perjury.

So why is there a trial? Because there is no penalty for using the threat of imprisonment as a political weapon against conservatives. Ask Tom DeLay or Rush Limbaugh.

If Libby were a Democrat, we would know the sexual proclivities of everyone in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office, Judith Miller would be portrayed as a "stalker," Tim Russert's cat would be dead, and the public would know about every toupee at MSNBC.

Republicans don't have to kill cats to bestir themselves to defend their own from rank partisan persecution. But it never happens.

People who attack conservatives never have to worry about their own dirty laundry coming out. All they have to worry about is whether People magazine will use a good picture of them in its "Sexiest Man Alive" issue.

When Secret Service officers innocently told Monica she couldn't see Clinton because Eleanor Mondale was "visiting" the president, Bill Clinton immediately threatened to fire the officers responsible. (They say Clinton was so mad it took him an extra couple of minutes to "finish off" in the sink.)

Compare that to how the Bush administration treats an employee caught actually violating a citizen's rights. An officer with Bush's own customs office held Rush Limbaugh for three hours at a private airport, mauling his belongings and calling in his Viagra prescription to the media before he had left the airport. We don't even know her name.

No one has bothered to investigate what prescriptions she takes or whether she has any angry relatives willing to badmouth her. She certainly has not been fired for this egregious violation of an American citizen's rights. No worries — it was just a conservative.

You want to protect the borders, cut taxes, fight Islamic fascists and put up Ten Commandments monuments? Get her name. Find out about Patrick Fitzgerald what we'd know if he were Ken Starr. If you won't defend your own champions, conservatives, then don't sit back and wonder why so few people want to be your champions.

Views of war, peace need perspective

After I read George Kulas' commentary urging the restoration of the military draft, I recalled some lines from long ago:

"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier, I brought him up to be my pride and joy.

I can think of precious few callings more worthy of pride than military service. Incredible discipline & sacrifice undertaken to preserve the lives & rights of all of us, as well as our children’s future? The parent that takes the quote’s view of military children must be deeply troubled.

"Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder to shoot some other mother's darling boy?"

Somebody who fights evil, that’s who. In today’s war, soldiers don’t shoot “darling boys;” they shoot subhuman jihadists who would gleefully slit the throats of all our “darling boys.”

Then I recalled some words from the late Mahatma Ghandi: "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

It makes a world of difference to how many are killed, orphaned, or rendered homeless, and whether or not the inhabitants of such regions are to have any hope of lives governed by modern standards of humanity or endless barbarism.

War doesn't determine what is right, it only determines who is left.

Florian Zalewski

Fond du Lac

This letter is especially troubling for its demeaning of military service. “We support the troops,” liberals say, “just not the war.” Well, this liberal sure doesn’t.

One of the reasons I started Coulter Nation was a thirst for debate. I believe that honest, principled, passionate discussion is essential to the pursuit of the truth and the future of America (I know some will wonder why, then, I named a blog after Ann Coulter; it’s because she saves her ire largely for the political "big boys" who've got it coming). So it’s especially troubling to me when honest debate breaks down.

I have always committed myself to addressing opposing views with reason & respect when they’re presented in good faith. However, when opponents choose to pollute the debate with dishonest, demeaning or otherwise-unethical conduct, they will find that I have little patience for them.

During a recent debate, one commenter (who has a history of intolerance towards those with whom he disagrees) made the choice to lie about my words, twisting them into an admission of ignorance on my part that I obviously never made (usually not a smart move to tell a lie that can be disproved simply by scrolling up). When confronted, he refused to acknowledge his deception; instead, he declared victory & claimed the incident proved his intellectual superiority!

I mention this because I’m sure most bloggers have encountered similar situations at one point or another, so I’d like to offer Coulter Nation’s policy on the matter. When individuals choose to sink the debate beyond the point of decency, their further comments will not be dignified with a response. Tempting though it may be to fight back, such people will not listen to reason, so further responses will only be wastes of valuable time.

Thanks for reading, and have a great, blessed day.

10 Myths—and 10 Truths—About Atheism

SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term “atheism” has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.

Atheists are often imagined to be intolerant, immoral, depressed, blind to the beauty of nature and dogmatically closed to evidence of the supernatural.

Intolerant? Harris himself openly argues that mainstream religious beliefs be treated with little more respect than Holocaust denial. In a debate with Dennis Prager, he said: “As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population.” The plain “truth”? Believers of all stripes are full of it.

Immoral? Let’s break it down. The further one strays from God, the more he will consider personal morality a judgmental and oppressive concept (“Get your laws off my body,” “How dare you force your morality on my personal life,” etc.). Typically, atheists condemn anyone who tries to apply a uniform moral standard on society (despite the fact that legal enforcement of such standards is rarely, if ever, advocated). Now, atheists will say this only applies to personal conduct, like sex lives and drug use (this, too, fails—sexual promiscuity opens the door to destroying one’s self-control, spreading disease, killing preborn children with impunity, and narcissistic inconsideration for children that are born; drug use opens the door to disregard for the world around oneself, impaired judgment that can have ramifications for others, & promoting the drug trade). We are just as honest & law-abiding as you are, they say. We don’t accept hurting or disregarding others. Often this is true, but it’s hardly an argument for atheism’s validity, as I will explain after Harris’ tenth point.

Depressed? Again, it depends on how thoroughly one thinks through the ramifications of atheism. Again I refer to Dennis Prager. On October 10, 2006, he explored the question: If there is no God, can there be ultimate meaning to life? The segment is a must-listen, especially for Angie, whose touching call illustrates the depression of one who does carry atheism to its logical conclusions.

Blind to nature’s beauty? No, but again, atheists seem not to think the beauty through. It is as if they marvel at the beauty of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, then dismiss mention of Michelangelo.

Dogmatically closed to evidence of the supernatural? Of course they are. In Harris’ eyes, there is no good reason to believe anything about any religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Look no further than the work of CS Lewis or Peter Kreeft.

Even John Locke, one of the great patriarchs of the Enlightenment, believed that atheism was “not at all to be tolerated” because, he said, “promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist.”

See my explanation of a conscience’s hold on an atheist (by the way, George Washington expressed a similar sentiment in his Farewell Address: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness -- these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”).

That was more than 300 years ago. But in the United States today, little seems to have changed. A remarkable 87% of the population claims “never to doubt” the existence of God; fewer than 10% identify themselves as atheists — and their reputation appears to be deteriorating.

Given that we know that atheists are often among the most intelligent and scientifically literate people in any society, it seems important to deflate the myths that prevent them from playing a larger role in our national discourse.

1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.

On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Atheists tend to be quite sure that life is precious. Life is imbued with meaning by being really and fully lived. Our relationships with those we love are meaningful now; they need not last forever to be made so. Atheists tend to find this fear of meaninglessness … well … meaningless.

Again, I ask atheists to think it all the way through (and while you’re at it, you really should listen to the aforementioned Prager segment, which tackles this question head-on). Of course things feel meaningful to atheists, as well they should. But to say life gets meaning simply from being lived is circular gibberish.

2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.

People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

The last sentence is right (partially because religion is reasonable); everything else is wrong. These great evils were products of unbelief, and the reason their religion-like personality cults took hold was that they made an enemy out of true religion first. The supremacy of the State replaced the morals of God.

3) Atheism is dogmatic.

Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity’s needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous. One doesn’t have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs. As the historian Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71) once said: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

I understand if somebody rejects the idea of God, but if such a person then claims to take nothing on faith, he’s lying (perhaps to himself). To believe the universe began out of nothing (or never began, as someone actually suggested to me once) requires a leap of faith. To believe the human capacity for consciousness, thought, emotion, self-restraint, art, and a host of other wonders are the result of purely earthly mechanics requires a leap of faith. To believe that life and all that makes it function came about by, in large part, chance requires a leap of faith. Which brings us to…

4) Atheists think everything in the universe arose by chance.

No one knows why the universe came into being. In fact, it is not entirely clear that we can coherently speak about the “beginning” or “creation” of the universe at all, as these ideas invoke the concept of time, and here we are talking about the origin of space-time itself.

Fair enough, but the more uncertainty one concedes about these matters, the less he qualifies as an atheist and the more he should be considered an agnostic.

The notion that atheists believe that everything was created by chance is also regularly thrown up as a criticism of Darwinian evolution. As Richard Dawkins explains in his marvelous book, “The God Delusion,” this represents an utter misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Although we don’t know precisely how the Earth’s early chemistry begat biology, we know that the diversity and complexity we see in the living world is not a product of mere chance. Evolution is a combination of chance mutation and natural selection. Darwin arrived at the phrase “natural selection” by analogy to the “artificial selection” performed by breeders of livestock. In both cases, selection exerts a highly non-random effect on the development of any species.

If Richard Dawkins really possesses the marvelous, objective intellect he is said to, then I can only assume Harris garbled his message, because this passage does nothing to demonstrate a misunderstanding of evolution. Everybody knows that Charles Darwin’s theory rests on both random mutation and natural selection. Random mutation is still such a substantial part of the supposed process that to believe it could account for all it is said to, and do so without any plan, intent or guidance, still requires a leap of faith.

5) Atheism has no connection to science.

Although it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God — as some scientists seem to manage it — there is no question that an engagement with scientific thinking tends to erode, rather than support, religious faith. Taking the U.S. population as an example: Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not. This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.

The National Academy of Sciences condones cloning “eggs and early embryos to produce stem cells for use in medical research” and is silent on the paramount bioethics issue of abortion, so I hope you’ll excuse me if I find its judgment less than persuasive. Moreover, there are plenty of serious scientific minds who believe in God.

6) Atheists are arrogant.

When scientists don’t know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn’t know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn’t arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.

If this is a myth about atheists, then why doesn’t Harris refute it by talking about atheists? What’s that? Because “atheist” and “scientist” are synonyms, you say? See above. Harris’ own writing regularly drips with arrogance, so this one’s a bit of a joke.

7) Atheists are closed to spiritual experience.

There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don’t tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.

No, these experiences don’t necessarily speak to the truth of any specific theology. But there’s still something unnerving about an atheist’s ability to experience these things without thinking maybe—just maybe—there’s something more than just adaptations and chemical reactions behind them.

There is, in fact, not a Christian on this Earth who can be certain that Jesus even wore a beard, much less that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. These are just not the sort of claims that spiritual experience can authenticate.

By and large, Christians are certain of Christ’s divinity, but don’t claim to “know” it in a strictly analytical sense. However, reason can lead us much closer to that conclusion than Harris would have us believe. Lee Strobel has done it, and so has Peter Kreeft.

8) Atheists believe that there is nothing beyond human life and human understanding.

Atheists are free to admit the limits of human understanding in a way that religious people are not. It is obvious that we do not fully understand the universe; but it is even more obvious that neither the Bible nor the Koran reflects our best understanding of it. We do not know whether there is complex life elsewhere in the cosmos, but there might be. If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature’s laws that vastly exceeds our own. Atheists can freely entertain such possibilities. They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.

From the atheist point of view, the world’s religions utterly trivialize the real beauty and immensity of the universe. One doesn’t have to accept anything on insufficient evidence to make such an observation.

General insults against holy books aside, I reiterate: the more someone admits uncertainty about the universe, the more he becomes an agnostic, not an atheist. The idea that believers are sheep who never question anything is also a canard. Doubt about God’s existence, authority, and even His love have existed since the Book of Job.

9) Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society.

Those who emphasize the good effects of religion never seem to realize that such effects fail to demonstrate the truth of any religious doctrine. This is why we have terms such as “wishful thinking” and “self-deception.” There is a profound distinction between a consoling delusion and the truth.

Certain religious doctrines make certain promises. Practice of said religious doctrines fulfill such promises. This isn’t proof, but it certainly suggests there may be something to them.

In any case, the good effects of religion can surely be disputed. In most cases, it seems that religion gives people bad reasons to behave well, when good reasons are actually available. Ask yourself, which is more moral, helping the poor out of concern for their suffering, or doing so because you think the creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it or will punish you for not doing it?

This is an unfair simplification of Judeo-Christian morality. Good behavior has to start somewhere, and whatever else may be said of it, eternal punishment/reward is an attention-grabber. An obligation to good behavior, even a selfish one, is at least a starting point. From there it becomes a habit and paves the way for us to think about why God wants us to act as He does. When we do that, we begin to appreciate His wisdom, take it to heart, and make it a way of life.

10) Atheism provides no basis for morality.

If a person doesn’t already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won’t discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.

We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn’t make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.

Isn’t it funny how a supposedly pro-slavery book like the Bible somehow fueled the abolition movement?

I’ve heard this old line—“I don’t need some book telling me murder is wrong, and if you do, something’s wrong with you”—before. It betrays a misunderstanding (or knowing distortion) of the believer’s argument. Of course many atheists have consciences which restrain their impulses & prevent other impulses from forming in the first place. But try to explain the human conscience on purely secular terms, and it can’t endure. Is my conscience unique to me? Is it nothing more than certain societal stigmas that have rubbed off on me? Why can’t I say my conscience says something totally different than yours? Who are you to say yours is more valid than mine? Because society agrees with your conscience? Well, maybe society’s wrong! After all, 200 years ago, whose conscience would society have agreed with? Even today, nobody thinks society’s conscience is right on everything! My point: the conscience of an atheist, while a good thing, is more emotion than logic. A believer, by contrast, knows his conscience and understands that it was put there by a higher authority.

(Hat tip: Michelle Malkin)

Since the Reporter went for a pretty long while without many political letters, and this one shows up right after mine on the same topic, the timing seems just a tad fishy:

Guest commentary: Gays, lesbians represent new barometer of human rights in Fond du Lac, too

As the Fond du Lac community gathered at Marian College to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it was fitting that United for Diversity was honored with the Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Award.

United for Diversity, under the leadership of Sister Stella Storch, has been at the forefront of much of the work done to make Fond du Lac a more welcoming community to the increasingly diverse people who call it home. United for Diversity co-sponsored Diversity Circles in which members of the community had an opportunity to dialog across racial and ethnic boundaries. We Welcome Diversity, another United for Diversity program, invites business and community organizations to show their welcome to all by displaying the program's decal.

Y’think the chances are good that UFD includes diversity of political worldview in their values? Me neither.

As Sister Stella spoke about United for Diversity she noted that the organization works to promote the acceptance of all types of diversity. In publicly opposing the constitutional amendment to deny marriage to same sex couples, United for Diversity demonstrated its commitment to support a broad definition of diversity. That commitment was also reflected in the organization's inclusion of representatives from Fond du Lac High School's Gay Straight Alliance at its fall gathering.

This inclusion of gays and lesbians as part of the diversity that should be welcomed in our community is also consistent with the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. This fall as segments of the African-American community were quoted in the media denying that gay rights were civil rights, my friends Pastor Mary Council-Austin and Judy Goldsmith each voiced her dismay to me that such views were clearly at odds with the legacy of Dr. King.

Linking gay activism to the civil rights movement, an extension of Fair Wisconsin’s unsuccessful campaign centerpiece, seems to me little more than “virtue by association.”

Both of these local women, who are in the forefront of diversity and justice work in Fond du Lac, have also worked with the national leadership of the civil rights movement.

Speaking at the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King III said, "Homophobia is hate, and hate has no place in the beloved community."

Speaking to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Julian Bond, NAACP chairman said, "When I am asked, 'Are gay rights civil rights?' my answer is always, 'Of course, they are.'"

No arguments here—bigotry against gays is inexcusable, and gay people absolutely deserve equal rights. The problem is, the Left doesn’t mean actual “gay rights” by that phrase; they mean “gay political goals.”

Most notably, Coretta Scott King became an unwavering supporter for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and was a keynote speaker at the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce Creating Change Conference in 2000.

Additionally, many still are unaware that a gay black man by the name of Bayard Rustin was the principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. It was Rustin who brought Gandhi's nonviolent protest techniques to the America civil rights movement and he helped to mold Martin Luther King Jr. into an international symbol of peace and nonviolence.

In 1987, a year before his death, Rustin said, "The barometer of where you are on human rights is no longer the black community, it's the gay community. Because it is the community that is most easily mistreated."

Unfortunately, Fond du Lac's gay and lesbian community was not "officially" represented at the King Day event. Hopefully, that will not be the case again next year. United for Diversity has taken positive steps toward their inclusion.

Rustin is right. Gays are the new barometer on human rights, and Fond du Lac should recognize that so we can truly work together toward making this community welcoming to all.

Madonna Bowman is a resident of Fond du Lac.

Nice history lesson, but it doesn’t offer much that’s relevant to same-sex marriage other than emotional insinuation. “Gays are the new barometer on human rights”?! Even if we accept the premise that current marriage/civil union policy is wrong, isn’t the phrase “human rights” awfully presumptuous? What about the fact that preborn children can be legally killed for virtually any reason? What about women living under sharia law in the Middle East? What about genocide in Darfur? No, I guess the fact that society doesn’t slap the title “marriage” onto same-sex unions is a higher priority.

Currently watching Fox's coverage of the State of the Union.  Bill Kristol (a Republican from the Weekly Standard) just said it was nice to see Nancy Pelosi on the dias behind the President because she's the first female Speaker of the House.

Has Kristol just been contaminated by Beltway culture so much that he gets gushy over any old display of superficial symbolism?  Nobody would claim the rise of, say, Paris Hilton to the position would be a good thing (Speaker Coulter, on the other hand, would be a fantastic turn of events....).

And now Bush just paid lip service to Pelosi's post.  Give me a break...

Today the Reporter opines about our Commander-In-Chief:

Editorial: In shadow of war, Bush losing touch with public

We believe it is not the most controversial observation in the world to note that Fond du Lac, Dodge and Calumet counties are conservative communities.

The values here generally fall in line with the kind of God-, guns- and guts-driven voters who make up the core of President George W. Bush's political base. And voters in our backyard have been there for our nation's chief executive time and again, helping to make him the only two-term GOP president since Ronald Reagan.

We note this because when the president loses support in, oh, Madison, no one is going to blink an eye.

But when the nation's Republican leader sees erosion in areas like ours — places that profess to take pride in family values, Judeo-Christian ethics, small-government philosophy and strong respect for the military — it's probably worth his taking note.

No one was more surprised than us, therefore, when an online survey hosted last week by The Reporter saw a jarring 70 percent of respondents (an impressive 1,156 of them) either voicing opposition to the president's troop surge approach to the Iraq war, or going even a step further and demanding an immediate withdrawal of American forces.

We are the first to acknowledge that those results do not represent a scientific sampling. But by the same measure, you'd be hard pressed to dismiss that data out of hand. As the cliché suggests, where there's smoke there's fire: And something is certainly burning, folks, whether it's sectarian violence in Iraq or, more specifically, Middle America's festering impatience in dealing with it.

A segment of the public certainly has issues with impatience. To many Americans, the concept of an un-reasoning threat to our nation’s survival just isn’t real, and even if President Bush was a marvelously-eloquent communicator, they still wouldn’t wake up. But that’s not to say Bush is blameless. With regard to public relations, the Administration has done rather poorly. They should have been more proactive debunking the “Bush lied about WMDs” garbage, or better yet, they should have emphasized the Saddam government’s ties with terrorism all along (which have also been documented by Stephen Hayes and Richard Miniter); that would have had the dual effect of better cementing in people’s minds the fact that Saddam was a threat to America, and more importantly, part of the War on Terror. The White House & the Republican Party has been too content to use talk radio & the blogosphere as a crutch of sorts, making their cases for them. And, of course, better management of the war.

In the end, our online poll remains nothing more than a snapshot in time, but one indicating that even tried-and-true, proud-and-principled conservatives no longer feel the need to walk in lockstep with the president.

We might even flip that observation 180 degrees and suggest that it is Mr. Bush who has fallen out of step with the core beliefs of his conservative base.

He certainly has, but all on domestic policy. Bush’s foreign policy disappoints us on the Right in degree, not really in kind. As Newt Gingrich likes to say, Bush policy has problems, but the solution is Bush-Plus, not Bush-Minus.

The validity and morality of America's conflict in Iraq is another editorial for another day. We simply ask the president to listen to what is being said on the nation's Main Streets.

To put this into perspective: Historians have often suggested that the turning point of America's involvement in Vietnam occurred on Feb. 27, 1968, when CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite delivered his "We are mired in stalemate" broadcast.

Nearly four decades later, the people of Fond du Lac, Dodge and Calumet counties have expressed a similar sentiment via the media. Their convictions, concerns and questions are no less valid than those delivered by a man once described as "the most trusted man in America."

The Reporter’s right about the effect of Cronkite’s broadcast, but not its validity. The media deserves blame, not praise, for its endless carping about this war (criticize strategy, sure. But don’t lie about why we did it, or downplay the good we’ve done).

Tonight, President Bush will offer his State of the Union. He will speak directly to the nation, to us, and he'll — justifiably — expect that we listen to what he has to say.

We wonder, however, when tomorrow rolls around if the president will accord his countrymen the same respect: Will he listen to the voters, to the people who put him into office, and hear what they are trying to tell him?

I love the cookie-cutter admonition: “listen to public opinion” (I seem to recall that the Reporter didn’t take its own medicine when urging voters to reject the successful Marriage Amendment…). Real leaders figure out what’s right, then persuade the public to follow them. That’s why they’re called “leaders,” not “followers.”

While snooping around the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is NARAL's website, I found this supposed expose of - get this - crisis pregnancy center