As the days tick down toward a fateful and fiercely contested election, both parties have sharpened and simplified their messages to the masses. In each case, in fact, the partisans have reduced their electoral appeals to four words.

The Democrats tell the public: “Iraq is a mess.”

The Republicans insist: “We kept you safe.”

Both these messages count as powerful and persuasive because they’re both obviously true – and will win agreement from the vast majority of our fellow citizens. Yup, Iraq is a mess—even at a time of reduced US casualties and apparent political progress for the new Iraqi government, insurgent attacks are up and the cost of the war is crushing. And yes, President Bush and his GOP colleagues have kept the US homeland safe from terrorist attack, despite the deadly Islamo-Nazi strikes against some twenty other nations around the world.

So if both parties convey potent messages that produce widespread agreement, which one wins in November?

That depends, of course, on the way that each side responds to the other guy’s assault.

For the Democrats, the right way to hit back at the “we kept you safe” argument is to offer yet another four-word declaration: “We’ll keep you safer.” In order to make that case plausibly, however, they must explain what they will do that differs from the Republicans. This counts as a tall, almost impossible order, for two basic reasons:

First, when it comes to an appropriate strategy for Iraq and the War on Terror in general, Democratic candidates simply cannot agree with one another. That’s why party leaders must resort to unconvincing platitudes like calling for a “new direction” with no explanation on what that new direction might be.

Second, as much as the Dems would like to make this election all about Bush, they can’t vote him out of office. If they run too hard on foreign policy initiatives, even if they finally agree on some “new direction,” they’ll still face a tough time explaining how they’ll change our defense and diplomatic strategies from the House of Representatives or the Senate. Like it or not, the Constitution gives the President control of our military and our relations with the world, and the presidency isn’t on the ballot in 2006.

Meanwhile, how should Republicans respond to the core Democratic declaration, “Iraq is a mess”? The right answer --, as Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and George W. Bush no doubt understand—is one final four word slogan: “They’d make it worse.”

While Democratic partisans may insist that Iraq couldn’t possibly get worse, the GOP must challenge the public to use its imagination. A precipitous US withdrawal could produce a powerful, hostile, truly fanatical government in Baghdad, in place of the current shaky but friendly authorities. Most Americans will reject the idea that concessions to terrorists will somehow discourage them. By highlighting Democratic weakness, division and confusion on the war on terror in general and Iraq in particular, the Republicans can make the case that a “new direction” could be more dangerous than a consistent commitment.

Finally, the GOP must understand the real thinking (and feeling) behind the overwhelming public disapproval of the current war. The solid majorities who dislike the way the President is conducting the battle in Iraq do not agree on a better approach – many (if not most) of these critics, believe that the Republicans haven’t been tough enough on our enemies. One of the consistent complaints from callers to my radio show is that “Bush is running a politically correct war” and refusing “to take the gloves off” in dealing with our enemies.

If the President managed to convey a new vigor and resolution in prosecuting this war – perhaps by increasing the number of troops and launching aggressive new strikes against our enemies – he could win back some of these doubters. In any event, stronger displays of toughness and determination could underline the indispensable answer (“They’d make it worse”) to the Democratic attack on the war (“Iraq is a mess.”)

While this election cycle will continue to turn on four word messages, by 2008 it’s likely that there will be only one word that matters to voters concerned with our Middle East policy: either “victory” or “defeat.”

The Gallup Poll indicates that Americans have more confidence in the military than in any other profession (cops and clergy are second and third, respectively) so it should come as no great shock that Hollywood releases two new movies that glorify men in uniform. The surprise is that both these films – “Flyboys” and “The Guardian” – are so expertly crafted and so richly entertaining.

“Flyboys” (released last Friday, and doing respectable business at the box office) tells the stirring story of the Lafayette Escadrille in World War I. These Americans volunteered to fly airplanes (assembled from wood and canvas, mostly) for France before the United States formally entered the war in 1917. Amazingly, these daredevils dueled German pilots in elaborate aerial battles (thrillingly reproduced on screen) barely ten years after the Wright Brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk. The movie is old-fashioned in the best sense of the word: with vivid, sympathetic characters (including a heroic Bible believing Christian who sees himself on a holy mission), stunningly staged action sequences, and even a touching romance involving an American kid (James Franco) from Wyoming who speaks no French and a French farm girl (the lovely newcomer Jennifer Decker) who speaks no English. Inky-dinky parlay voo? TV veteran Tony Bill directed this independently produced, largely unheralded gem with a determination to tell the story with faithfulness and respect to the historical record. He’s succeeded in terms that easily surpass what jaded moviegoers had any right to expect.

“The Guardian” (released today, Friday, September 29) celebrates Coast Guard rescue swimmers, who drop from helicopters to save victims on board boats that are menaced by raging storms. Director Andrew Davis (“The Fugitive”) does a superb job with the menacing seas -- even more scary here than in the hit thriller “The Perfect Storm.” But Kevin Costner also delivers one of his best-ever performances as a world-weary veteran (just jilted by his lovely wife, Sela Ward) who takes a break from his legendary career as a rescuer to teach others at an elite Coast Guard school. Ashton Kutcher plays his most arrogant student, a former swimming champ with his own guilty secrets. The movie is formulaic, manipulative, and an unmitigated pleasure to watch --- moving and engaging and richly satisfying, from beginning to end. The heart-stopping scenes of rescue swimmers in action might be expected, but the rich, intelligent written characterizations count as a significant bonus.

Both “Flyboys” and “The Guardian” are rated PG-13, though “Flyboys” (with its discreet treatment of violence and death, and its very mild references to sexuality) is far more appropriate for youngsters (anyone over the age of ten) than the darker, more adult “The Guardian.”

As a film critic, the most common question I hear (constantly) is: “Seen any good movies lately?” Well, I’ve seen two solid cinematic contributions in less than ten days. It may not herald some new “golden age” for Hollywood but it’s refreshing and energizing to find films—two of ‘em, in fact -- that deserve enthusiastic recommendations.

The acclaimed new documentary “Jesus Camp” reveals far more about liberal paranoia than it does about the fervent Pentecostal Christians it sets out to expose.

The film, opening in theatres across the country, focuses on a religious summer program called “Kids on Fire” in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, that draws young campers from across the country. While the two New York-based directors (Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady) claim they tried to treat their subjects openly and fairly, the ads for the movie indicate their obvious agenda—featuring an endorsement claim proclaiming “Jesus Camp” as “One of 2006’s Most Frightening Films.”

The movie goes to great lengths to make a faith-based summer camp look like an authoritarian training ground for Nazi youth or jihadist killers – comparisons deliberately invoked in words and images. The filmmakers use extreme close-ups and dizzying camera angles show a congregation in fervent prayer, or speaking in tongues, accompanied by dissonant, don’t-look-in-the-closet music that could have been borrowed from “Psycho” or “Night of the Living Dead.” Mike Papantonio, an outspokenly leftist radio host for “Air America,” provides running commentary that regularly warns the audience of the alleged danger and dishonest of Christian conservatives.

But even more than the hysterical tone of the film itself (which regularly punctuates images of enthusiastic religious kids with “ominous” media sound bites concerning the nomination fight for Justice Samuel Alito) the reaction of prominent critics demonstrates a wildly exaggerated fear of people of faith. According to Jennifer Merin in The New York Press, the movie depicts evangelists stirring campers “into such frenzied chanting about banning abortion and creating a Christian America that they enter trance-like states… These hair-raising moments…expose a terrifying training ground of religious indoctrination and will (hopefully) convert those who watch it to a greater awareness of what’s happening on our home front.”

Meanwhile, in the prestigious New York Times, Stephen Holden writes: “At Kids on Fire we see children in camouflage and face paint practicing war dances with wooden swords and making straight-armed salutes to a soundtrack of Christian heavy metal. We see them weeping and speaking in tongues as they are seized by the Holy Spirit. And we see them in Washington at an anti-abortion demonstration.”

He then concludes his review with a warning of such delusional grandeur as to verge on self parody. “It wasn’t so long ago that another puritanical youth army, Mao Zedong’s Red Guards, turned the world’s most populous country inside out,” Holden writes. “Nowadays the possibility of a right-wing Christian American version of what happened in China no longer seems entirely far-fetched.”

Mao and his Communist minions butchered at least 35 million human beings. Does Stephen Holden of the New York Times honestly believe that Christian kids in America might some day do the same?

While the reaction to “Jesus Camp” by the secular establishment regularly features words like “terrifying” and “hair-raising,” the most frightening aspect of the film’s release involves the apparently sincere concern on the part of any number of cosmopolitan sophisticates that decent, devout, family centered, patriotic, kind hearted, law-abiding Christian activists actually represent the present day equivalent of menacing, murderous Maoists.

As conservatives approach a decisive election just 42 days from today, it’s time to face the truth about the Congressional GOP. Yes, the Republicans who run the House and the Senate are far from perfect, but it’s ignorant, dishonest and self-destructive to suggest that they’re “useless,” “identical to Democrats,” or “complete traitors to their principles.”

Consider the all-important issue of taxes: new figures just posted on the website of the Internal Revenue Service, reflecting definitive data from all federal tax returns, highlight some significant accomplishments of Republicans in Washington. In 2000, the last year of the Clinton presidency, the average tax rate for all taxpayers was 15.3%. In 2004 (the latest year for which final numbers are available) that rate had fallen to 12.1%-- an across-the-board cut of more than 20%. The only voters who could claim that a 20% tax cut is insignificant are those who don’t pay taxes.

Meanwhile, the Bush/GOP tax cuts (decried by dishonest Democrats for benefiting “only the rich”) proved especially significant for the bottom 50% of all taxpayers. Under Clinton, these below-average wage earners still coughed up 4.6% of their income to the feds. Under Bush, that rate for the struggling bottom half dropped to 3% --a healthy cut of 35%.

The IRS numbers also give the lie to the Democratic charge that “the filthy rich” gobble up a larger portion of the national income than ever before. The top 1% of taxpayers took an all-time peak percentage of the national income under Clinton—some 17.8%. The most recent figures for Bush show that the privileged one per cent reduced their share of our society’s earnings during his presidency to 16.5%.

Politicians and pundits make it a habit of lying – and they indulge that habit with gusto and recklessness. Statistics, however, don’t lie – at least not when they’re based on the actual money collected by the IRS. Perhaps these new numbers will provide a needed dose of reality therapy for confused conservatives – and cure the crazy idea that there’s no real difference between Democrats and the GOP.

An eccentric professor named J. Philippe Rushton has ignited a raging controversy in the United Kingdom with a new theory that claims that men outclass women in achievement and the exercise of power not because of sexism, social conditioning or hormones, but because of superior intelligence. After all, males develop notably larger brains (even relative to their larger body size) and IQ tests from around the world give men a consistent average advantage of at least four points.

My first reaction in reading a description of this new research was to retreat to well-rehearsed conventional wisdom: men weren’t any smarter than women-- they were just smart in different ways. For instance, isn’t it true that on standardized aptitude tests men always perform better than women on mathematical ability, but women always perform better than men on verbal ability?

To my surprise, this commonplace assumption turns out to be an urban myth: on the Scholastic Assessment Test, males consistently outperformed females on both verbal and mathematical aptitude. Going back forty years, there were five years (1967-71) when women taking the tests topped men on the verbal section (now known as “critical reading”) by margins ranging from two points (out of 800) to seven points (an all time high water mark for females, in 1969).

Beginning in 1972, however, males began beating females on the verbal/critical reading test and never looked back, racking up advantages as large as twelve points (1989). Not once in the 34 years between 1972 and 2006 did females beat or equal males in either verbal or mathematical aptitude. In the math tests, by the way, the male advantage remained huge and crushing—reaching as high as 44 points in 1986, and standing at a decisive 34 points today.

These numbers (reflecting mean SAT scores of all college bound high school seniors) raise many troubling questions. First, given the consistent male advantage on both traditional divisions of the test, there’s no easy explanation for the far greater number of young women admitted to college – and the even stronger female advantage when it comes to university graduation. Nearly sixty per cent of young people to earn college degrees this year will be women – an apparent preference that makes no sense whatever when men so consistently and decisively show greater aptitude. In light of the test scores, there’s no escaping the suspicion that women receive preferential treatment in college admissions and, perhaps, on campus.

Of course, one might argue that the test scores reflect nothing more significant than an ability to game a multiple choice exam, but a wealth of data suggest that the SAT results remain a powerful, reliable predictor of success in academia and later in life. In any event, the scores suggest an imbalance in male and female potential that easily could explain the greater success of males of the species in business, academia, the sciences and most other fields. One might easily find fault with the conclusions or methods of the ever-outspoken, always outrageous Professor Rushton, but the testing results of literally millions upon millions of US college students suggest that his theories can’t be dismissed as utterly ridiculous.

What constitutes the essential, unbridgeable difference between human beings and animals?

The most common answer would probably involve language, but recent research claims to have discerned subtle animal languages in dolphins, apes, elephants and other species. In any event, there’s an even more striking distinction that does stem, in part, from our human linguistic ability.

I would argue that memory—the ability to recall and analyze your own life, and to pass those conclusions on to future generations – represents the most decisive and divine of our distinctive gifts. Individual animals can learn, mastering practical challenges and even, to some extent, teaching those skills to their young. But the ability to make progress from generation to generation – to remember all the accumulated lessons of the past and to pass them on – simply does not exist in the animal kingdom. Recent primate research focused on the emergence of distinctive “cultures”  in different bands of chimpanzees, with the creatures developing varied habits based upon the group that raised them. Despite this evidence of some intergenerational transmission, there’s no evidence of “progress” among animals—of a through-line showing profound changes over hundreds of years. To the best of our knowledge, chimpanzees live out their lives in virtually identical fashion to their ancestors from thousands of years ago, as do dolphins and elephants and bears. They lack memory, which empowers us to change our own lives and to bring about profound alteration in human circumstances over the course of just a few generations.

The importance of memory emerges as one of the primary themes of the just-concluded Jewish holiday of Rosh HaShannah – misleadingly translated as the “Jewish New Year.” Actually, the more accurate, authentic name for the two day festival, featured in the prayers and blessings of the season, is “Yom HaZikaron” – or, “Day of Memory.” On this occasion we want God to remember us mercifully, and to remember the virtues of our ancestors, as we recall our own deeds, good and bad, from the year just passed. Rosh HaShannah—the Day of Memory – ushers in a ten day period of repentance and self examination culminating with Yom Kippur (this year on Monday, October 2^nd), the Day of Atonement. One of the themes of the process of repentance is the effort to transcend our physical, animal nature and to enhance our spirituality – which is why the Day of Atonement brings a full, 25-hour fast. Jewish tradition teaches that all human beings combine elements of animal and angel, dust and divinity; this time of year, by exercising the faculty of memory God has given to us, we hope to emphasize and elevate the more Godly aspects of our being. We use the gift of memory not only to review our own past behavior, but to connect to the distant past and God’s epic revelation at Mount Sinai.

No beast could recall an event from 3,000 years ago—or even a hundred years ago—and in our unique capacity to remember we affirm the divine, eternal element of our nature. A few themes from the Rosh HaShannah holiday stress the all important distinction between human begins and animals. The synagogue liturgy repeatedly identifies the day as “the birthday of the universe,” and yet all sources agree that Rosh HaShannah actually marks the sixth day of creation, when God formed man and woman. There’s an obvious question here: wouldn’t the birthday of the universe actually involve the first day of Biblical creation, which would have been five days before Rosh HaShannah? Our sages respond that the true celebration of creation could only come when that work had been completed, and man and woman took their place in the universe the Almighty had created for them. In other words, in the Biblical world view human beings (shaped in the image of God, possessing His unique ability to create and remember) don’t count among the beasts of the field, or the air, or the sea, but as a distinctly higher, more divine aspect of creation.

There’s also a relevant message in the portion of the Bible which Jews all over the world read in synagogue on the second day of Rosh HaShannah. For more than a thousand years (at least), we’ve read from Genesis 22 on this occasion, reviewing the famous passage about the binding of Isaac. While Abraham is prepared to answer God’s command to sacrifice his son, at the last moment an angel stops him and a ram is substituted for the young man. (In fact, the ancient tradition of sounding the ram’s horn—or shofar – on this holiday connects with this Biblical passage). The great Twelfth Century sage Moses Maimonides suggests that the aborted sacrifice of Isaac was meant to teach the Jewish people for all time to avoid human sacrifice, so horribly common among ancient and primitive cultures. Animal sacrifice is substituted, just as Abraham substituted the ram, emphasizing the profound intrinsic difference between human beings and beasts. In that sense, the sound of the ram’s horn not only summons us to remember our Creator, and the work of creation completed on this day, but to recall the distinction between human and animal, and our obligation to develop the higher elements of our nature as we review our own shortcomings in the newly completed year.

On this Day of Memory (with the holiday completed at full dark, today, Sunday) I can recall my previous experience of Rosh HaShannah, going back to the hazy recollections of childhood. Of course, I think of standing in prayer with my father and grandfather more than fifty years ago, as my fourteen year old son stood with me today. Our daughter Shayna, newly moved into her sorority at the University of Washington, joined us for the festival, though we felt the absence of our oldest daughter, Sarah, who attended services near her college in New York City. She will, God willing, join us all for Yom Kippur.

At this season of repentance, self-examination and recollection, may we be blessed to use our gift of memory, pertaining to our own lives as well as past generations, to bring forgiveness, reconciliation, growth and progress, for ourselves, our communities, and our country.

   When a foreign leader comes to the UN General Assembly and identifies the President of the United States as "the devil" (not A devil, but THE big guy himself) then it's hard to pay serious attention to the rest of his speech.

   But the address by Hugo Chavez deserves more substantive attention than it's received because it so precisely echoes the common attacks on this country regularly launched by the international left, including numerous academics, bloggers, activists and other opinion leaders in the USA itself.

   The essence of this criticism (elucidated in Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States," the book recommended so relentlessly by Chavez in his speech) involves the charge that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has become the world's dominant, all-powerful Empire. It's not only lefties who believe this: in 1999, the notorious non-Leftist Pat Buchanan wrote a bestselling book called "A Republic, Not an Empire" that also discerned imperialist aspirations in American foreign policy. Pitchfork Pat might have even found some sympathy for some of the ardent words by Mr. Chavez in his speech to the United Nations. In addressing the absent President Bush, the President of Venezuela declared: "I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations."

    And how, exactly, has America, demonstrated lack of respect, or disregarded the sovereignty of nations? Where have we set up this elusive "American Empire" that America-haters everywhere love to decry?

  A dictionary definition might prove helpful at this point-- enabling us to discover that the word "empire" signifies "supreme rule, absolute power or authority; domination" or "government by an emperor or empress" or "a group of states or territories under one sovereign power." Which of these  descriptions fits America's current situation?

   Recent history actually provides a far better definition of "empire" or "imperialism" than any dictionary: the old Soviet Union constituted an unquestionably imperialistic power and had indeed assembled an "Evil Empire." One of the characteristics of that empire involved the "absolute power and authority" over neighboring states, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, and so many more. As part of the empire, these components couldn't possible defy the "supreme rule" in Moscow. If they did, they got tanks in the streets, as in Budapest in 1956, or Prague in 1968.

   Has the United States subjugated any nation, anywhere, in this imperialist manner? Even Cuba, a mere 90 miles away from our shores, has defied and conspired against the United States, without provoking the easy military response that would unequivocally crush that resistance were we a genuine imperialist power.

   In fact, no imperialist power would allow the emergence of numerous hostile, but democratically elected governments in our own hemisphere, including the current rulers of Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and, in Venezuela, the irrepressible Mr. Chavez himself. The United States may enjoy economic, even cultural influence in many (if not all) of these countries but the political control normally associated with Empire simply doesn't exist -- a fact that's more obvious today, with the recent leftist sweep in the hemisphere, than it was a decade ago. And concerning the "economic exploitation" that allegedly characterizes our business relations with developing nations, that's also a far cry from imperialism's exploitaiton of colonies. According to mercantile principles, the mother country is supposed to enrich herself through the colonies; in America's case, developing nations enrich themselves (and often to our detriment) by selling us stuff, or taking our aid. Wouldn't a true imperial power drive down the price of a commodity as essential to itself as oil, rather than allowing a capricious cartel led by Saudia Arabia to set the cost of energy according to its own whims and interests?

   The only two nations on earth that the US may be said to "dominate" and "rule" through force are, of course, Iraq and Afghanistan -- both special cases in which the United States clearly wants to establish governments strong enough to excercise true independence and even to defy us -- allowing our troops to withdraw as soon as possible. No one looking at the balance sheet behind the present and recent past can plausibly argue that our current, lavishly costly efforts to strengthen struggling democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq can enrich our coffers in any way.

  Despite the comments of Hugo Chavez regarding the speech by President Bush ("I think we should call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the President of the United States"), the address to the UN by the Leader of the Free World remains persuasive and compelling in portraying our true goals. "Every civilized nation, incluing those in the Muslim world, must support those in the region who are offering a more hopeful alternative," President Bush declared. "We know that when people have a voice in their future, they are less likely to blow themselves up in suicide attacks... Freedom, by its nature, cannot be imposed -- it must be chosen."

  He's right, of course -- and a nation that refuses to impose freedom, or any other governmental or economic structure, on even our closest neighbors, can hardly justify the title of "Empire," whatever the scale of its economic and cultural influence.

   The mighty publishing industry has committed formidable resources to alerting complacent Americans to the dangers  of a malevolent force that purportedly menaces all of us:  the growing power of conservative Christians. 

  Tomorrow on my radio show, I confront Sam Harris, author of the latest book length attack on traditionalist believers: "Letter to a Christian Nation," published by Knopf. In the course of his brief book, Mr. Harris declares that "many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously intolerant" and concludes: "It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly attributable to religion.... is what makes the honest criticism of religious faith a moral and intellectual necessity."

   This broadside ( which offers just 92 pages of large type for a startling price of $16.95) represents just the latest release among scores of volumes which have recently slammed and smeared conservative Christians. Among the many, many recent predecessors to "Letter to a Christian Nation" are "Thy Kingdon Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America"; "Jesus is Not a Republican: The Religious Right's War on America"; "With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House"; "With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America"; "The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Coutnry from the Religious Right"; "The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of Us"; "Close Encounters with the Religious Right: Journeys into the Twilight Zone of Religion and Politics"; "Using Terri: The Religious Right's Conspiracy to Take Away Our Rights"; "Liars for Jesus: The Religious Rights Alternative Version of American History"; "Why the Christian Right is Wrong"; "An Outline of the Bible: Why the Religious Right Can't Call Itself Christian": "The New Subversives: Anti-Americanism of the Religious Right"; "American Theocracy: The Perils and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money"; "Hijacking of the Christian Church: Voices of the Religious Right," and countless other predictably alarmist titles.

    These volumes -- duly published and promoted by prestigious major imprints -- all seethe with fear, resentment, paranoia and hysterical hatred toward citizens who have perpetrated the unspeakable crime of upholding traditional and Christian religious values. Since Sam Harris suggests in his latest book that the people who share such views constitute an overwhelming majority of Americans -- some 260 million individuals, Harris estimates-- the implacable hostility toward this huge segment of the population represents an appallingly odd business strategy, if nothing else. 

    The increasingly shrill warnings about the dreaded "Christian Right" become particularly difficult to understand in light of the constructive and public spirited behavior of most people who identify as conservative believers. None of the books decrying Christian influence suggest that people of faith in the United States engage in violence against other religions, or unravel the fabric of society through criminality, selfishness or greed. When I've interviewed the authors on my radio show, they have freely admitted that they would be pleased to live next store to an Evangelical, or even Fundamentalist Christian family, because such people are likely to be law-abiding, hard-working, neighborly, stable and considerate. This contradiction demonstrates the irrational nature of the hatred and fear of a group of people who do more than their share to feed the hungry, house the homeless, keep families together, educate their children, serve in the military, give to charity, maintain their homes, nurse the sick, promote adoption and build communities.What, exactly, do conservative Christians do that in any way harms or damages their non-Christian neighbors (like me)?

   In answering that question, critics of the "Religious Right" always come back to issues of political influence and their groundless fears of some future theocracy. The secular liberals don't so much object to what Christian conservatives currently do, as they fear what they believe those activists want some day to achieve. But even here, it's hard to explain the hysteria and negativity. Yes, many (probably most) conservative Christians would like to return to the practice of reciting non-denominational prayers in public schools, and they would like to preserve Ten Commandment monuments and crosses currently on public display. But these preferences hardly qualify as intolerant, Taliban-like, or theocratic -- unless you believe that the USA under the Constitution, between 1789 and 1961, constituted some benighted theocracy. Before a series of Supreme Court rulings in the early 1960's, most American school kids began the school day with prayer but that tradition in no way stifled diversity or free excercise of religious preference -- nor did the religious symbols liberally scattered across the national landscape.

   The ongoing publishing industry assault on People of Fatih targets some of the most generous and patriotic of our fellow citizens. Since these attacks bear no connection to actual damage to communities or individuals, the critics invariably cite theological abstractions -- suggesting, for instance, that Christian conservatives are dangerous because they assume that non-believers are going to hell. But as long as these religious folks don't treat non-believers like hell-- and they don't-- then what's the real problem if you dislike somone else's view of the afterlife? Sam Harris reveals the deeper motivation at the very beginning of "Letter to a Christian Nation." He writes: "If the basic tenets of Christianity are true, then there are some very grim surprises in store for nonbelievers like myself....So let us be honest with ourselves: in the fullness of time, one side is really going to win this argument, and the other side is really going to lose."

   Mr. Harris, in other words, seems to worry about people assuming he's bound for damnation because in one corner of his mind, at least, he fears they may be right. In the argument he describes, it's not possible that Christian believers are "really going to lose." If Mr. Harris is right about humanity and materialism, then there will be no sense of regret or despair if religious people fail to reach heaven after death. If we are, indeed, just spiritless chemicals then we won't be around to feel remorse over a life wasted in prayer, religious fellowship, and good deeds. When he suggests that one side is "really going to lose" he can only have his own side in mind.

   That's why the maturation and empowerment of America's religious communities looks so threatening to atheists, agnostics or the disinterested. The more that people of faith develop confidence, sophistication and influence, the more that those on the other side nurse the dark, inescapable, intolerable fear that they just may be right about life and eternity. It's that profound and perpetual worry -- not the behavior or even ambitions of Christian conservatives - that irritates and alarms those who've rejected traditional faith.    

   In terms of boxoffice receipts, the number one movie in the country this weekend proved to be "Gridiron Gang," a rousing if formulaic account of a real-life probation officer at a California juvenile detention camp who organizes his teenaged felons into a winning football team. Following the unexpectedly strong box-office performance of the recently replaced number one film "Invincible" (another true story about a part-time bartender with no college football experience who wins an unlikely place in the NFL), this little winning streak for pigskin pictures has led many commentators to take note of the potent popular appeal of football fantasies. 

    Other recent Hollywood hits ("The Longest Yard," "Remember the Titans," "Friday Night Lights") lend further support to  the notion that America at the moment feels especially partial to movies about the gridiron game. Nevertheless, I would argue that the reliable box-office success of such films says more about a generalized hunger for heroes, inspiration and uplift, than any preference for one sport over another. Oliver Stone's  NFL epic "Any Given Sunday" was sacked for a major loss in 1999, despite an all-star cast (Al Pacino, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, LL Cool J., Dennis Quaid) because of its cynical approach to the game. Meanwhile, other feel-good, beat-the-odds true stories from other sports ("Miracle" about hockey, "The Rookie" on baseball, "Glory Road" with college basketball) scored well with the same audiences who eagerly embraced "Invincible" and "Gridiron Gang."

    Beyond our undeniable national love affair with football, we have indulged an even longer-standing romance with underdogs and uplift. The American people clearly crave the experience of coming into a multiplex, plunking down ourr ten bucks, and then coming out of the darkness feeling better than when we entered. Should that surprise anyone? This nation remains the world center for overcoming obstacles and savoring second chances. In business, the arts, the military, even politics, prohibitive favorites regularly see themselves upset and surprised by disadvantaged nobodies from nowhere. To some extent, that's the American dream that still inspires tens of millions of our unshakably optimistic countrymen, both native-born and immigrants, and in Hollywood's "Golden Age" in the '30's and '40's, the greatest filmmakers regularly celebrated these stirring underdog stories. Acclaimed and popular films like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Sergeant York" and "Young Mr. Lincoln" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and, later, "To Kill a Mockingbird" supported the notion that in this country, hard work and determination and decency could triumph over misfortune and oppression of every variety.

   It's sad that the only remaining arena for this sort of story-telling appears to involve the world of sports. Whether it's an aging player with little experience qaulifying to play for the Philadelphia Eagles ("Invincible") or a group of convicted, violent gang members coming together to form a nearly unbeatable high school level team ("Gridiron Gang") when it comes to sports, the movie industry still believes in miracles. In the process, however, the big studios largely ignore the everyday miracles that continue to characterize American life, whether it's an impoverished black kid from a broken home making his way to Harvard and the U.S. Senate, or countless immigrants from India or El Salvador who take their place as doctors, lawyers or captains of industry. 

  Entertainment industry decision makers may believe that today's skeptical Americans would look askance at any tales of uplift or inspiration outside the realm of big time sports, but the best response to that groundless fear comes from paraphrasing another memorable (and hugely successful) film about athletics and redemption. In "Field of Dreams" the main character learns a lesson that Hollywood moguls should keep in mind: "If you build it, they will come."

  Yes, the embattled Pope deserves impassioned support from all people of decency and good will and, yes, the pathetically predictable Islamic over-reaction to his recent words demonstrates once again the primitive, tribal, insecure essence of the so-called "Religion of Peace." Muslim crazies, always searching for some new basis to encourage fanatical hostility toward the West, distorted the Pontiff's substantive, thoughtful address at the University of Regensburg by ripping a single quotation wholly out of context and imputing to the Benedict himself some incidental sentiments communicated by his Medieval source. Nevertheless, by choosing to cite that source in the first place, Pope Benedict made one crucial mistake: by discussing the conflict between Islam and Christianity in a fourteenth century context he provided the nostalgic perspective that the Islamists relish, and that all "infidels" (Christians, Jews and others) should scrupulously avoid.

   To come to terms with the nature of the Pope's error one must first understand the true message of his scholarly lecture, which made only the briefest reference to the long-standing struggle between Christianity and Islam. His speech attempted to affirm the necessary connection between faith and reason, declaring that "not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature." In this regard, he quoted the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus who declared in 1391: "God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead smeone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, wihtout violence and threats."

  These sentiments hardly sound controversial, but the Holy Father preceded them with another citation that provoked the rage of the Islamic world. "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new," said the Emperor more than six hundred years ago, "and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

  The problem with this quotation isn't the inaccuracy of the Emperor's observation but the opening it provides to allow Islamic apologists to take us back once more to the days of desperate and deadly  Muslim-Christian competition in the late Middle Ages. For instance, Anas Altikriti, writing in the British leftist journal "The Guardian" under the headline "An Insufficient Apology" seized the opportunity to remind his readers that "whilst the Catholic church was cementing the barbarism of Europe's dark ages," the Muslims were "busy writing literature, philosophy, art, architecture, medicine, chemistry, physics, biology, algebra and music." He goes on in lyrical terms to hail the "vast and illustrious universities and libraries of Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba, Seville and Cairo" and "the 100 years of glorious co-existence among Muslims, Christians and Jews" in Spain.

   Mr. Altikriti is right, of course, about the long-ago glories of Muslim civilization but the Islamic enlightenment of six centuries ago only makes their present predicament more perplexing and appalling. Non-Muslims should never engage in useless arguments about the relative merits of Islamic and Christian civilizations in the fourteenth century. Focusing on these by-gone conflicts makes Christendom look far worse than it is today and allows Islam to appear far better than it is today. That's why President Bush rightly apologized after he used the term "Crusade" to describe America's mission in the War on Terror. For Muslims, that term invokes images of an age in which Christians often proved harsh, bloodthirsty and barbaric, while their Islamic ancestors could arguably represent the more enlightened contender. Worst of all, the era featured a world-wide conflict between two powerful civilizations who fought for world dominance on a more-or-less equal basis.

   Any recollection of medieval Christian-Muslim struggle therefore feeds the insane Islamist fantasy that today's battles amount to another "clash of civilizations" -- a laughably absurd notion when one considers the vast gulf separating Islamic nations (which now represent some of the earth's most backward, dysfunctional, violent and regressive societies) from the countries of the West (which constitute nearly all of the world's most dynamic, productive, powerful and enlightened states). The current battle hardly amounts to a war of civilizations, but rather constitutes a war AGAINST civilization by forces of barbarism and primitivism.

   The hysterical response to the Pope's harmless if clumsy citation of a Medieval quote only underscores the point. The Dark Ages thinking that prevails in nearly all Islamic societies produces logic that suggests that the best way to rebut the ancient charge that Islam is inextricably intertwined with violence is to provide alarming displays of new violence. The public relations masters in Mecca and other centers of Islamist "thought" have concluded that they can prove that they do indeed honor reason and persuasion more than force by fire-bombing churches, killing nuns and issuing statements (even in London!) demanding the Pope's assassination.

   The stupidity remains so obvious and so striking that it only underscores the need to keep our focus on contemporary conflicts, rather than giving the Islamist cheerleaders any opportunity to obscure the wildly uneven nature of the current struggle by looking, nostalgically,  to the more balanced battles of the dim and distant past.  

  When you sit down with George W. Bush in private conversation, he comes across with only a casual resemblance to the famous figure we've all seen on TV. 

  I had the opportunity to reach that conclusion during a ninety minute "off the record" meeting in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, September 15th. I'd met the President before (as he duly noted when I came through the door) but only in passing: at a large, formal dinner in Dallas in 1995 when he was Governor of Texas, and at a breakfast gathering of Seattle religious leaders during his first race for the Presidency in 2000.

  This situation was different, in part because any individual becomes a different person after he takes over the most powerful job on earth and in part because the setting was unusually intimate. On Tuesday evening, I received an invitation to this Oval Office meeting with the President: Trey Bohn, a capable official from the White House press office, said that the chief executive wanted to communicate his ideas, his view of the world, on a personal basis to a handful of opinion leaders from the world of talk radio. All day Wednesday, we struggled to rearrange my schedule in order to facilitate the trip to Washington: when the Leader of the Free World extends an invitation, it's only appropriate to make every possible effort to accept. I took the red-eye on Thursday night (with my wife Diane) after  my normal broadcast, and a screening of a grossly incompetent movie. The schedule allowed time to shower, shave and change in our hotel before walking the three blocks to the White House.

    I arrived early, as the President's staff had requested, and sitting in a waiting room in the West Wing with some of the other meeting participants,  we could hear snatches of the singularly feisty press conference the chief executive conducted (to my surprise) that morning, immediately before our appointment. The other invited guests for the Oval Office meeting were four fellow national talk show hosts, most of whom I knew reasonably well -- Sean Hannity, Mike Gallagher, Laura Ingraham, and Neal Boortz. While the President grabbed a quick lunch after his press conference (we were told), we sat around a long table in the Roosevelt Room, immediately adjacent to the Oval Office--- inspecting the portraits of Teddy Roosevelt on the wall, and the framed Congressional Medal of Honor he won for leading the charge up San Juan Hill.

   After a few minutes, White House press secretary Tony Snow invited us into the Oval Office, where we each greeted the President and his chief-of-staff, Josh Bolten. As we sat down on the couches in front of the President's desk, and he took the chair facing the two couches, Mr. Bolten left the office and the President began to talk. Other than the five guests, the only other people in the room were White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and White House communications director Dan Bartlett.

   The first thing I noticed when enterting the Oval Office, by the way, is the superb lighting: the room is bright yellow, and the light is notably brighter than in the other rooms of the executive mansion. Even on a cloudy, overcast morning, you feel as if you're in the midst of a desert in the noonday sun. In a sense, I suppose that brilliant glare reminds the president and his aides that you can't count on any dark corners, any lingering shadows, to obscure what occurs in the Oval Office.

  In that unforgiving light, the President also looks larger, more formidable than he looks on television. He often appears to be a slight, unsassuming man, but he's 5'11", notably broad-shouldered, and with a habit of throwing those shoulders back with a West Texas swagger. Standing next to Al Gore (who's 6' 2") or John Kerry (who's 6' 4"), President Bush may look small by comparison, but when expansively welcoming guests into his office he's a commanding and room-filling presence. Part of that, of course, is the air of familiarity and power that surrounds him, but part of that warm and authoritative aura is, inevitably, just him.

  I had expected that once we all sat down, the President might ask us some questions about the concerns and opinions of the radio audience, or else he might have opened himself to questions or comments we wanted to pose. In the event, he did neither: he simply began talking about the world situation, and never stopped. We had been scheduled for half an hour with Mr. Bush but he continued to speak-- with increasing energy and focus, as a matter of fact --for some ninety minutes before aides appeared to enforce the rigors of his schedule. Because the conversation was officially "off the record," I'm not supposed to quote specifics of the President's comments, but I can describe the subjects he covered and my general reaction to his conversation. He spoke primarily about the ongoing War on Terror -- showing unexpectedly detailed and meticulous knowledge of progress (or lack thereof) in many specific fronts around the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Bush's critics like to deride him as an empty-headed frat boy who knows nothing about other world leaders, but in his lengthy session with us the President told a series of amusing and very revealing stories about a half dozen heads of state. Without breaking the ground rules and providing specifics, I can say that the Leader of the Free World feels hearty affection for Junichiro Koizumi, the out-going Prime Minister of Japan, and he gave a riveting account about meeting the Prime Minister of Spain that would have made any American-- Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal -- feel proud and grateful that this generally under-rated Texan represented the United States of America a that particular moment. His comments about China, and the relationship between the Chinese economy and the nation's foreign posture, were particularly perceptive and persuasive, reflecting a much richer understanding of that confusing and powerful society than most reporters or pundits. 

  In the past, I've heard Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich show off their brilliant minds with long, discursive, deeply informed rambles that sketch out a free-flowing view of the state of the world. I've never heard anyone suggest that George W. Bush, whatever his virtues of character and resolution, could be capable of a similarly dazzling tour of the horizon-- but he provided precisely that sort of over-view this Friday, full of insight on societies, inviduals, and ongoing struggles. The only significant interruption occured when we all heard a sudden, disturbing sound and looked to the glass doors behind the President's desk. It became apparent that some rudely insistent, or perhaps altogther unauthorized intruder, meant to disrupt our meeting, so the President summoned an aide from the next room who opened the door for Beazly, one of the White House Scots Terriers. A few minutes later, Barney, the more famous member of the Presidential canine corps, demanded entrance with similar scratching insistence. The little dog strode into the room with his own air of command and entitlement and looked around briefly as the President sang his praises to us, then scampered into an adjoining room for a more pressing engagement.

  In addition to his exploration of world affairs, the president also spoke about gas prices in the US (lamenting the fact that he's much easier to blame when they go up than to credit when they go down), the ongoing religious revival, or awakening, and the upcoming Congressional elections (about which he maintains complete confidence, despite "stupid moves" by a few specific Republican candidates which he discussed). Asked about the possibility of immigration reform before the election, he expressed passionate concern for establishing better security at the border, but indicated an unwillingness to change his "core principles." He made the important point that if he abandoned his well-known commitments on this or other domestic issues, the nation's enemies (and the rest of the world) would take away the belief that the President could be bullied, prodded, overwhelmed and initimidated -- harming the war effort for which young Americans risk their lives. He deeply believes in the importance of resolution, determination, and consistency in world affairs-- and emphasized several times that he refuses to govern according to trends, polls, or public opinion.

   There's nothing grim about this commitment to remain unbending and unafraid in pursuit of his purposes. This President doesn't grit his teeth, or feel beleaguered or forlorn over low opinion ratings, or the angry demonstrators who wait outside the White House fence every day.  When I visited the executive mansion, one protestor dressed as the grim reapear, in a black robe with a skeleton mask and scythe, carrying a sign thanking President Bush for the help. Others deployed larger-than-life puppets of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, dressed in striped prison suits, with manacles on their legs. I looked for some angry demonstators carrying signs equating the President to Hitler; they weren't there this trip, but I've seen them before, and so has Mr. Bush. In view of the poisonous nature of the opposition to his leadership, one might expect the President to sink into a self-pitying, paranoid funk, like so many of his predecessors (Wilson, Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Carter)  who faced a hostile public during the last years or their terms.

  This President, however, feels in no way cowed or discouraged or overwhemed, and that's the most encouraging lesson I took away from my hour-and-a-half in the Oval Office. He looks and sounds energized, and said several times how much he enjoys the Presidency, likes making decisions, and remembers what a privilege and an honor it is to be where he is. He even indicated a determination to go back to an effort to save Social Security after the election --- despite the crushing opposition the last time he tried to perform this public service. The President clearly loves his job and relishes the opportunities it affords him to change the country. He doesn't feel sorry for himself, and with his savvy resolution to make the most of the two years remaining to him after the mid-term elections, he doesn't want anybody else's pity.

   Of course, that brightly lit Oval Office is hugely impressive but so, it must be said, is the impassioned individual who occupies it. If some of George Bush's most fervent detractors had been able to sit where I sat on Friday afternoon, they might not have bought the President's arguments, or his defense of his positions, but they couldn't dismiss the man's intellect, energy or information base ever again.

  And one more thing: twice during his meandering conversation, the President deployed the word "nuclear." Both times, he pronounced it flawlessly --- as "new- clee-ar," not "nuke-cule-ar." Considering the huge press attention on the mis-pronounciation of this single word, nothing shocked me more about meeting the president than hearing him, in private conservation, avoid a mistake for which he's become celebrated in public.

  If he can say "nu-clee-ar" in private, why does he still say, "nuke-cule-ar" when he speaks on camera? Could it be possible that there's some mischievous intent here-- that the President deliberately gives his own spin to the word just to provoke pompous pundits into paroxysms of supercilious rage? It seems like a far-fetched explanation, I'll admit, but after seeing the President's infectiously feisty mood this Friday, I wouldn't put it past him.

  When it comes to selecting a winner of the coveted distinction of Dumbest Book of the Year, the competition in 2006 is especially fierce. Nevertheless, the newly published "MIDDLE CHURCH: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right" instnatly qualifies as a formidle contender. The author,  the Reverend Bob Edgar, is General Secretary of the National Council of Churches and a former Democratic Congressman (six terms) from Pennsylvania.

   In addition to the normal slanders and smears of the alleged intolerance and mean-spiritedness of leaders he considers representative of the "far religious right" (including a layman named George W. Bush), Dr. Edgar offers a novel perspective on the perplexing and persistent problem of poverty. On page 182 of his new masterpiece, he declares in ringing, unequivocal tones: "The greatest moral blight is not poverty itself, but the wealth amid which it exists and, even worse, the ease with which it could be cured."

   Is he kidding? "...The ease with which it could be cured?" When I talked with him earlier today on my radio show, I asked about this odd idea that "curing" poverty was an easy matter. If it really could be cured with ease, then why did Lyndon Johnson have such a tough time with his "War on Poverty" here in the United States? As President Reagan noted: "We declared war on poverty, but poverty won." Charles Murray and other scholars made clear that despite the vast spending on "Great Society" anti-poverty programs (some five TRILLION dollars by most estimates!) economic destitution only got worse, until Reaganomics finally began to make a positive difference in the 1980's. Later, welfare reform in 1996 made an even more positive impact -- helping to destroy (at last) the culture of depenedency.

   The idea that cures for poverty come easily has been a distinguishing characteristic of the international left. The only sense in which it ever worked in Communist countries was relative: by making nearly everyone poor and destitute (except for the party bosses) they created an illusion of equality.

    The most surprising aspect of Edgar's argument is that he totally ignores spiritual considerations-- a shocking blind spot for a clergyman (he's ordained in the United Methodist Church). When I asked him if he considered it a "moral crisis" that one third of US babies are no born out of wedlock he said, flatly, "No." He stubbornly refused to acknowledge that fatherless households contribute directly to the problem of poverty -- and that any cure for poverty must include a cure for out-of-wedlock parenting.

   If a "man of God" sees the impoverished state of millions of Americans stemming from purely material problems (we don't give them enough money) rather than spiritual problems (bad values, bad behavior, collapse of the traditional family), then he is, frankly, in the wrong business. The whole idea of religious faith is that spiritual, moral values help to shape our material world-- either helping us or harming us in enjoying richer, better lives.

  If a pastor and religious leader sees social problems only in terms of government programs that redistribute tax money, he ought to go back to the world of politics which he left some years ago. And maybe, he ought to give up the writing business as well--- since MIDDLE CHURCH is about the MUDDLED CHURCH of liberal orthodoxy, and just another tiresome screed (among literally scores of recent volumes) that attacks the good work and redemptive messages of idealistic religious conservatives.

   Hugh Hewitt is a great American and one of my political mentors but every once in a while, even the most wonderful guy makes a mistake. In his reaction to the GOP Primary in Rhode Island, the disappointed HH (who energetically backed conservative challenger Steve Laffey) now demonstrates the same sort of Death Wish that Republicans everywhere should resist. He suggests that Laffey's supporters should now cast their votes for the DEMOCRAT in the race, Sheldon Whitehouse, rather than uniting behind the space-case incumbent Senator, Lincoln Chafee (R-Pluto). Why, Hugh, would you ever advise people to vote for a candidate with whom they disagree on EVERYTHING? It's true that Chafee is wrong on big issues (tax cuts, the war, Bush-v-Kerry, Alito) but what are the issues on which he's wrong but the Democrat, Whitehouse, is right? There are good reasons that the White House, and Steve Laffey himself, now support Chafee: keeping GOP control of the Senate is essential for the President to enjoy any success at all in the remainder of his second term, especially with the real possibility that the Dems will take the House. Supporting Laffey in the primary was an honorable if arguable position, but supporting the Democrat in the general is not. Why would you urge such a thing? Pique? Resentment? Rage?

  I know there's an argument that the party is better off without flakes like the often missing Linc, but defeating him in the general isn't just a matter of "getting rid of him" -- it's a matter of sending a new liberal Democrat to Capitol Hill to re-enforce Harry Reid, Teddy the K, Pat Leahy, and the boys. The desire for "Party Purity" (let's purge all these disgusting moderates and RINO's!) is a self-destructive, illogical inclination. Sure, Jumpin' Jim Jeffords is a jerk, but is the GOP really better off because he jumped? How about Connie Morella, a former Congresswoman from Maryland who was also the target of a right wing purge attempt? Is the GOP in the House (where every seat counts) really stronger because, after surviving a Club for Growth jiahd against her, she lost to the Democrat?

  Hugh, you've made the case as well as anyone: politics is about supporting people with whom you agree most, not people with whom you agree perfectly. A pure, ideologically unpolluted party is a dead party --- one that could never, ever build a majority in this complex and divided country. We need Republicans like Arnold, like Spector, like Clifford Case (former Senator from New Jersey and another GOP victim of a rightist purge, whose seat has been held by Democrats ever since.) Isn't it obvious that you win elections by drawing people to your cause even if they don't agree with you completely, rather than pushing people away because they don't agree with you completely?

   Reagan undestood this better than anyone. He once said, "if you agree with me 70% of the time, that doesn't make you my enemy."Okay, Lincoln Chafee only agrees 40% of the time (he has a lifetime American Conservative Union voting record of 37% -- pathetic, admittedly, but still better than any sitting Democrat). In any event, when Reagan had a chance to select running mates he reached to his left, both times-- naming the liberal GOP Senator Richard Schweiker as his VP designate in 1976 (when he failed to win the nomination), and the moderate George Herbert Walker Bush as his Veep in 1980. If the greatest conservative in recent history understood the idea that reaching out is better than driving out, we should learn from his example.

  On my radio show today, I defended the President's September 11th address against Democratic charges that he had horribly "politicized" the War on Terror. The entire liberal argument is absurd: the President made no attempt to attack his opponents, but he did insist that the war in which we've been engaged for the last five years is, after all, worth fighting. He also mentioned the Iraq front of that ongoing war-- and had he failed to mention Iraq the Democrats no doubt would have attacked him for ignoring "the elephant in the room" or "failing to acknowledge his own monumental failures," or some other  nonsensical and trumped up charge.

  One of my callers -- a guy named Mark from Cleveland -- attacked President Bush by attempting to draw a contrast with Lincoln at Gettysburg, suggesting that Honest Abe had transcended politics and "brought the nation together" but "Dishonest Goerge" deliberately polarized people for political gain. When I contested Mark's interpretration of the original Gettysburg Address he accused me of "historical ignorance" -- a first for me, actually, since even listeners who disagree with my views will generally acknowledge that I know something about the political history of this country (I won't resort to a list of my academic honors at Yale in this subject but, trust me, I could).

  In any event, the point about the Lincoln comparison is that it should be reassuring -- not damning -- for George W. Bush. When Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19. 1863, the President was still hugely controversial and decidedly unpopular -- as was the bloody and often bumbling war he led. He was still a year away from his re-election victory against a Democratic "peace candidate" who wanted to end the struggle to defend the Union and claimed that Lincoln, the "backwoods baboon," had horribly mismanaged the conflict, due to lack of military expertise and experience. At the time of the Gettysburg Address and for months thereafter, the 16th President remained convinced that he would lose his fight for re-election.

   The speech at the battlefield was in no sense an attempt to placate his opponents, or to make concessions to the seething anti-war sentiment among Democrats (which had led to the Draft Riots in New York City just days after the Battle of Gettysburg-- the worst urban riots in US history, with more than 50,000 violent rioters and hundreds of deaths). What Lincoln attempted to do was strikingly similar to the purpose of the speech by Bush on September 11: he tried to restate the goal of the war, and to make it clear it was still worth fighting, despite enormous sacrifice. He asked his audience to "here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." As historian Roger Butterfield ("The American Past") described the occasion: it was "the best propaganda speech of the war."

   No one would claim that Bush's eloquence comes close to Lincoln's--- no one, not even Churchill, or Reagan, could approach the prose mastery of the sixteenth President. But Lincoln and Bush faced the same dilemma in addressing the nation at a solemn occasion for honoring the dead: they couldn't defend and refocus the ongoing struggle without offending some of the war's most dedicated, implacable, radical opponents (Senator Kennedy called last night's speech "shameful.")

   A few more notes concerning the parallels between the two speeches:

   The Battle of Gettysburg claimed nearly ten times the number of dead US soldiers in three days that the war in Iraq has claimed in more than three years. The population of the United States today is about 12 times the size of the Union population in 1863. This means that the rate of casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg as opposed to the Battle of Iraq is about 120 to 1; and if you adjust the difference in the duration of the struggles, the rate of battlefield deaths was 40,000 times higher at Gettysburg. This is not an insignificant difference.

   Second, it's worth noting that the Gettysburg Address -- despite its towering historical reputation -- was considered an abject failure at the time lincoln delivered it. His words brought bitter criticism -- just as Bush's words drew criticism last night. Some commentators actually suggested that the President's brief, plain-spoken remarks showed lack of respect for the Union dead. The featured speaker of the afternoon, Edward Everett of Massachusetts, talked for more than an hour and drew a far more favorable response.

  Eventually, history caught up with the Gettysburg Address and with the man who delivered it, making Lincoln a vastly more admired figure after his death than he ever was during his Presidency. No, you can't compare Bush (or anyone else) to Lincoln but I'm fairly certain that like the Rail Splitter from Illinois, the Great Clarifier, George W. Bush, will win the appropriate appreciation for his true greatness and indominatable courage only after he is gone.   

  During the spirited debates over the deeper meaning of the 9/11 anniversary, the American Left repeatedly (and insipidly) insisted that our freedom from homeland attack during the last five years gave no indication that we are indeed "safer" from terrorist assault. If we had been hit with terrorist assauls say, three times since 2001, wouldn't that constitute strong proof we were less safe? How, then, does the absence of attack fail to indicate some improvement in our security situation.

   In order to argue that we are, in fact, no safer and that the absence of al-Qaeda strikes merely represents a decision by terrorist leaders to leave America alone, critics of the Bush administration must dismiss overwhelming evidence that we have broken terrorist cells and disrupted major assaults, as well as ignoring all the successful abd bloody plots that have struck other nations in the world, from Europe to Indonesia, from North Africa to India. If al-Qaeda has deliberately refrained from hitting America, and concentrated instead on nations they hate less than they hate the United States, isn't that because they recognize that hitting American soil would be more difficult, and would surely provoke a more deadly, overwhelming response? In other words, if the lack of killing on US soil reflects a conscious decision by terrorist leadership that in itself represents an indication that our strategy agains the Islam-Nazis is working, and that this strategy ineed makes us safer than we were five years ago.