Three organizations with impeccable liberal credentials sponsored the most celebrated major national survey about parental attitudes toward sex education. National Public Radio, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and the Kaiser family foundation asked parents in 2004 whether sex education classes should include information about homosexuality. More than half of the respondents wanted schools to mention homosexuality “without discussing whether it is wrong or acceptable.” At the same time, only 8% of the parents of high school students and a mere 4% of middle school kids supported the idea that “schools should teach that homosexuality is acceptable.” Since the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 6%, it’s entirely possible that the percentage of middle school parents who want their kids informed that “it’s okay to be gay” is, actually, zero.

   But despite the fact that parents across the country overwhelmingly (almost unanimously, in fact) oppose the idea of pro-gay propaganda in schools, their kids are receiving precisely that sort of message. Recent controversies in Washington, DC and Montgomery County, Maryland, center on curricula that include the information that “many people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender celebrate their self discovery.” Some fourteen years ago, New York City schools launched the infamous “Rainbow Curriculum” for kids as young as kindergarten that featured the book “Heather Has Two Mommies,” which definitely conveyed an embracing, accepting message toward homosexuality.

   The fact that school districts everywhere move forward with such lessons, despite the obvious and sometimes fervent opposition of nearly all parents, illustrates one of the most disquieting accepts of contemporary American life.

   On a range of issues, ordinary Americans have begun to feel that their opinions and wishes don’t matter: big institutions and arrogant elites will do things their way, regardless of the wishes of the people. Increasingly, middle class citizens feel powerless, ignored, disregarded.

    The continued and unstoppable moves to undermine the traditional family (how many Americans actually support the idea that a third of all babies are now born outside of marriage?) provide one obvious example, but there are many others.

    On the immigration issue, everyone wants to see vastly improved security at the border and the speedy construction of the fence, but the government seems unable or unwilling to respond to this reasonable and overwhelming public desire.

     Every year in April, we groan and sweat under the mind-numbing complexities and crushing burdens of an irrational, incomprehensible tax system, but it only seems to get more complicated and annoying, no matter which party controls Congress.

    Time and again, citizens tell pollsters that they resent the corruption in Washington, the power of lobbies and corporate interests and the domination of big money in politics, but each election cycle we appear to see a process more out of reach for the little guy. We also feel disgusted with government waste and runaway spending – even welfare state liberals say they hate the idea of “pork”. Yet both major parties continue the disgusting practice or ripping off the public treasury for “goodies” that may deliver votes back home.

    These frustrations help to explain other polling data that show majorities of more than three-to-one who believe the nation is headed down “the wrong track.” This negativity co-exists with remarkably high satisfaction levels about our individual lives. A new Harris Poll released this week showed a startling 94% who say they’re satisfied with their personal situations, and a record 56% say “very satisfied.” By three to one, people believe their personal situation got better in the last five years (as opposed to worse) while by nine to one they think their lives will continue to improve in the next five years.

   If we think things are likely to get better for us, then how can we simultaneously suppose the nation’s on “the wrong track”?

   The answer, it seems to me, connects to this perception of powerlessness – Americans may think we’re doing fine, and feel grateful for our blessings, but there’s also a sense that the country is out of our control --- the wishes that we express over and over again get ignored in Washington, New York, Hollywood and other centers of power.

  Restoring the reality and the realization that we ultimately control our own destinies won’t be an easy process, but one place to start might be the public schools. Why not move immediately to empower parents rather than bureaucrats?

   And if parents want their kids to get only neutral messages about homosexuality, not celebration or endorsement or propaganda, why not give those parents what they want—or else drop the sex education altogether?

   Sometimes, we ought to acknowledge that when it comes to our own kids, father –and mother– really do know best. 

Everybody knows that one of the familiar definitions of insanity involves doing the same thing over and over again but somehow expecting a different result each time.

By that standard, Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Duncan Hunter ought to reaffirm their sanity by withdrawing from the Presidential race.

Both these veteran Republicans count as distinguished, thoughtful public servants and admirable patriots. They’ve both compiled formidable records on Capitol Hill. And they’ve both been running for President for several months, participating in all televised debates and, particularly in the case of Duncan Hunter, impressing many observers with their articulate and accomplished performances. Both candidates have also joined me on my radio show and answered questions in a forthright and effective manner.

But both Brownback and Hunter have failed utterly in generating momentum, enthusiasm or grassroots support for their Presidential campaigns and after last Saturday’s Iowa straw poll it’s time for them to help clear the field to provide more breathing room for viable candidates.

Hunter, the veteran House member from San Diego County, campaigned actively at the Iowa State Fair, proudly telling my radio audience that supporters had congregated from across the country to help him campaign.

The result? He drew only 174 votes – barely clearing 1% of the total – and finishing behind even Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, who had announced that they wouldn’t even compete in the straw poll. If anyone counts as a Turkey in the Straw, it’s Hunter: sadly, he got less than one-fifth the support of former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, who felt so embarrassed by his Iowa showing that he’s already withdrawn from the race.

Congressman Hunter, a smart and decent politician, should follow his example. Despite his energetic efforts, he’s generated scant support in Iowa or anywhere else. No new strategy, no fresh, commanding debate performance, will alter the brutal reality: as a serious candidate, he’s through. On what basis would he expect to build more support in the future?

Sam Brownback should ask himself the same question. He spent more money and energy on the Iowa Straw Poll than any other candidate besides the winner, Mitt Romney. He paid for mean-spirited attacks on his two chief competitors, Romney and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. One robo-call telephone solicitation urged voters to “Stand up for Life! Say No to Mitt Romney!!” – as if the former Massachusetts governor, who now embraces an anti-abortion platform, represents the nation’s chief threat to the unborn. A press release from Brownback’s office also tried to tar Governor Huckabee, a Southern Baptist Pastor, as anti- Catholic because one of his volunteer supporters (without any authorization from the campaign) sent out an e-mail questioning Brownback’s conversion to Catholicism.

Despite these desperation tactics, and costly efforts to lure supporters with free ice cream and an air-conditioned tent, Brownback took only 2,192 votes (15.3%), some 400 less than Huckabee and less than half the total for Governor Romney.

If, in a farm state neighboring his native Kansas, after frantic efforts, substantial monetary investment, and bitterly negative tactics against his rivals, Brownback could manage only a feeble third place showing, why should he expect to perform better in some other corner of the country? For the sake of Uncle Sam, it’s time for this Sam to say “Uncle,” before he does lasting damage to his honorable reputation by further pointless and slashing attacks on his fellow Republicans.

Two other also-rans in the Iowa Straw Poll, Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul, will no doubt continue their campaigns regardless of their non-existent chances of future success. Both men seek to publicize issues about which they’re passionate: a hard line on immigration for Mr. Tancredo, and an isolationist foreign policy for Mr. Paul. Their continued campaigning can actually provide a public service: demonstrating that their angry, alienated (and alienating) fringe perspectives draw scant support within the Republican Party.

Meanwhile, two of the other long-shot candidates (Tommy Thompson and former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore) have already dropped out of the race for the White House. If Hunter and Brownback do the right thing and follow their example, that leaves a much more focused campaign where the GOP candidates no longer resemble the seven dwarves (you can draw your own conclusions as to the identities of Grumpy, Sleepy and Dopey). With Brownback and Hunter gone (soon, please!) that leaves the two single-issue candidates (Paul and Tancredo) and five serious contenders: Giuliani, Fred Thompson, McCain, Romney – and Huckabee.

With his strong second place showing in Iowa, Huckabee should be able to raise enough money to re-energize his campaign and to begin to consolidate the currently splintered support of social conservatives. At that point, with the distractions and diversions largely cleared away, the citizens of key primary states can help to determine whether people of faith and values voters still dominate the Republican Party, while the race for the nomination gets vastly more interesting – and important.

No, I’ve never been a citizen of “The Savage Nation,” and I hardly count as an ardent fan of the bombastic, simplistic, perpetually enraged sort of talk radio exemplified by Michael Savage.

But regardless of my disagreements with the man’s style and substance, he’s absolutely right to stand up to bullying and intimidation by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Whenever a governmental official attempts to silence a journalist or commentator, then all those committed to free speech – whether conservatives, moderates or liberals – ought to protest vigorously against this clear-cut abuse of authority.

If San Francisco Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval dislikes the content of Michael Savage’s show he’s got a perfect right to go to management of the local station and urge them to drop the program, or to start a petition drive for that purpose, or even to organize a sponsor boycott.

Such protests would enable Sandoval and his leftist allies to use their free speech to answer the free speech of a radio host they find distasteful – the same way Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson used their national platforms to shut down Don Imus because of his notorious “nappy-headed ho’s” remark last April. I happen to believe that the anti-Imus hysteria represented a feverish sort of media insanity and over-reaction, but Imus can’t claim he was victimized by censorship. He faced the pressure of the marketplace and the force of public opinion – not governmental stifling or intimidation. And now Mr. Imus (having agreed to accept $20 million from CBS for their craven breach of his contract) appears poised to make a comeback, not because the government changed policy but because the marketplace and public opinion shifted.

In contrast to the Imus affair, the Sandoval-and-the-Supes attack on Dr. Savage amounts to precisely the sort of governmental meddling that civil libertarians of every stripe ought to resist. Sandoval introduced a formal resolution to the top governing body of San Francisco and his colleagues voted 9 to 1 to condemn Savage for “hate speech” and to demand his firing. The supervisors are entitled to their opinion, but they’re not entitled to abuse their position as elected officials to give those opinions governmental endorsement.

Government bodies on the federal, state and local level should strictly avoid condemning – or endorsing, for that matter – political opinions on controversial matters.

With the strident left clearly losing the battle of ideas, they want to use the power of officialdom to silence their opponents – hence the federal effort to revive the “fairness doctrine” under which bureaucrats would take responsibility for “balancing” broadcast opinion, rather than allowing the audience to pick whichever ideas its members want to hear.

The whole impulse to control, to punish, to stifle reveals the totalitarian complexion of contemporary “progressive” thinking. On CNN earlier tonight, I debated another talk show host who believed that Imus deserved a life-time ban from the airwaves because of his crude remarks about the Rutgers basketball team – comments for which he’s apologized lavishly and repeatedly. But at least the unforgiving critics of the much-derided Don haven’t demanded bureaucratic or official sanction to enforce such a ban.

For those who resent Imus or despise Savage, I’ve got a constructive suggestion: why don’t you just go ahead and turn these guys off? But for the sake of sanity and free speech, please avoid any governmental efforts to try to shut them up.

Democratic Presidential Candidates have generated some controversy with their decision to debate pet issues in front of the outspoken gay rights activists of the Human Rights Campaign and the fringey, far-left bloggers who gathered in a convention known as the Yearly Kos.

The real scandal, however, involves not the debates the Democrats agreed to stage but the prospective appearances they turned down. Remember, these same candidates considered Fox News (with its cable-topping viewing audience) too “radical” and “partisan” to televise their debate, and also refused to address the Democratic Leadership Council—the voice of “third way” moderate Democrats once headed by Joe Lieberman and, amazingly enough, Bill Clinton. The DLC now boasts the articulate and charismatic leadership of former Congressman (and recently defeated Senatorial candidate) Harold Ford of Tennessee, who warns that if his party disregards Bill Clinton’s efforts to move to the center (at least in public perceptions) it will lose at every level.

Any political organization that considers the microscopic focus on gay issues of the Human Rights Campaign (exemplified by singer, and questioner, Melissa Etheridge) more worthy of attention than the Democratic Leadership Council (or more deserving than Fox News, for that matter) can’t qualify as centrist or mainstream, and signals its intention to wage the most unapologetically far-left campaign since George McGovern’s deservedly doomed effort in 1972.

Infant educational videos have blossomed into a $20 billion dollar business, but a new study indicates that products like “Baby Einstein” and “Brainy Baby” do more harm than good. The prestigious journal Pediatrics published research from the University of Washington showing that for each hour a day that babies watched these DVD’s, they added six to eight fewer words to their vocabularies compared to other infants their age. It’s not that the “Baby Einstein” programming directly harms the children, but it does take them away from interaction with parents or other caregivers that would produce much stronger developmental results. By the same token, the problem with heavy TV watching for adults isn’t that the broadcast offerings are directly corrupting or poisonous, it’s just that in our crowded schedules giving passive hours to the boob tube takes precious time away from from more enriching, worthwhile, and satisfying engagement with real people and the real world.

Mitt Romney may be the frontrunner in Iowa and New Hampshire, but in national polls he lags far behind.

Despite consistently strong performances in all televised debates, and spending far more money than his GOP rivals, the Gallup Poll puts him in fourth place—with only half the backing of third-placer John McCain.

Part of the problem may be the spreading perception that he’s “too perfect” to be president. The other major candidates have experienced divorce, infidelity, or both, but Romney married his high school sweetheart 39 years ago and they’ve produced five spectacularly successful, happily married sons.

This impeccably-groomed multimillionaire also affiliates with a controversial church that prohibits pre-marital sex, alcohol, tobacco, and divorce. Somehow Romney needs to identify with his imperfect fellow citizens. Maybe he could start by expressing sympathy for rival Rudy Giuliani and his wife in the face of scurrilous personal attacks against them in Vanity Fair magazine.

With his 756^th home run, Barry Bonds broke the most hallowed record in baseball, but couldn’t quiet persistent charges that he cheated through steroid abuse. Condemnation of Bonds often ignores the countless greats who previously fell short as human beings -- Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle through drunken excess, Ty Cobb through womanizing, racism and violent bullying. Baseball achievement doesn’t depend on character, but rather on focus: the ability to put distractions aside and to concentrate exclusively on hitting the ball or throwing the pitch. Bonds certainly demonstrates such fierce, freakish focus, dismissing scandals and boos and personal disasters and putting together another great season at age 43. Along with other stars in their 40’s – like Roger Clemens, Jamie Moyer, Tom Glavine, Kenny Rodgers and more – Bonds shows how modern advances in medicine, exercise and diet have enabled dedicated players to maintain athletic superiority well into what used to be considered middle age.

Western Culture Didn’t Produce Great Art Solely for Liberals

Last week one of my nationally syndicated, conservative talk radio colleagues repeatedly mocked the death of film director Ingmar Bergman, and I’m not sure I understand why.

The host kept alluding, sarcastically, to coping with the “great loss” of the Swedish filmmaker, apparently scorning the mainstream media for paying attention to the passing of a figure who meant nothing to the presumed talk radio audience. The smug, pompous, proudly philistine tone (as if to say, ‘we don’t give a bleep about some artsy-fartsy film freak from some socialist Scandinavian country’) bothered me deeply – not so much because I care about Bergman (though I do) but because I care about the future credibility of the conservative movement.

If film represents the most significant and influential art form of the last 100 years (and it obviously does) and if Ingmar Bergman counts as one of the greatest and most inspiring masters of that art form (and for me he most certainly does), then what’s the problem with taking note of his death? Once upon a time in America we paid serious attention to serious artists, and noted their passing in a big way – of course the deaths of Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost and Igor Stravinsky and Frank Lloyd Wright and Alfred Hitchcock became big news, and why not? Their creative genius enriched the lives of millions.

Bergman, with films available almost exclusively in subtitles, may not have achieved the same kind of mass following in the US, but he still touched generations of film fans who came to appreciate the medium more richly and more deeply because of his art. I remember my father taking me, at age 11, to see “The Seventh Seal,” and feeling electrified, shaken, overwhelmed by its stark, dream-like black-and-white imagery (a Crusader knight playing chess with death on the beach), its passion, its fervent, heartfelt religiosity. Who cares that you have to read subtitles? Does scoffing at Bergman (or any other “foreign” director) indicate that conservatives are, in fact, too stupid to read the lines of dialogue so they can understand a film in Swedish?

I know that movie critics, with our obsession with talky, pretentious, obscure, impenetrable European films, deserve a certain amount of populist ridicule. But Bergman at his best hardly fits the snobbish stereotype: “Wild Strawberries,” “Smiles of a Summer Night,” “The Seventh Seal,” and “Virgin Spring” are completely accessible, crowd-pleasing masterpieces – delivering more emotion and humor and satisfaction and amazement than a decade’s worth of slam-bang Marvel Comic Book/Hollywood adaptations.

The deeper issue here involves the conservative attitude to great art.

Do we really believe that the appreciation of gutsy, richly imaginative, utterly engaging filmmaking is only for liberals and “sissies?” Do we want to identify with the idea that Country Music (or Christian Contemporary) is somehow more authentically conservative (whatever that means) than Beethoven or Mahler?

A great rabbi with whom I once studied (the late and beloved A.H. Lapin) used to say: “I refuse to believe that the Almighty, in his infinite wisdom, created all the beautiful and enjoyable things in His world only for non-religious people.” By the same token I refuse to believe that the finest artists in human history created their symphonies, plays, paintings, novels, poems, sculptures and – yes – motion pictures, only for non-conservative people.

In Bergman’s case, dismissal by right-wingers is particularly inappropriate. As the son of a strict Lutheran Pastor, he struggled all his life with questions of faith, death and morality, and utterly avoided the leftist platitudes typical of all-too-many contemporary American movies. Maybe the conservative radio host who dissed Bergman assumed that as a Swede, the great director must have been some sort of squishy liberal – especially since he married five different beautiful and talented women over his long life (and fathered illegitimate children with at least two others).

No, the filmmaker wasn’t a moral paragon, but can any honest conservative male actually blame him for finding Scandinavian women utterly irresistible?

In any event, I didn’t mention Bergman’s death on the air, but after hearing the scornful, insulting comments of my talk radio colleague I wish I had.

I’d like to urge all my listeners who haven’t experienced a Bergman film in all its beauty and elegance and emotional intensity to sample his work on DVD. The easiest recommendation: “Wild Strawberries,” a perfectly crafted and sublimely touching story about a complicated old man looking back on the joys and disappointments of his life on the same day he’s due to receive a public honor (Miraculously, Bergman made the film at age 39, when he still had 50 years of his own life left to live).

The important point here is that gun-loving, flag-waving, church-going, tax-hating, military-supporting, small-government, English-only, hard-working, red-blooded American right-wingers shouldn’t look with derision at the noble accumulation of centuries of timeless art – even though much of it is, in fact, from Europe. Appreciating the greatest works of western culture (very much including the greatest films) isn’t unpatriotic, or effeminate, or ungodly, or suspect in any way.

Appreciating great art, the finest products of our past, is, in fact, profoundly and unmistakably conservative.

In a desperate effort to revive his floundering presidential campaign, Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo has returned to his unhinged and wildly irresponsible discussion of punitive bombing of Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia.

On “This Week” on ABC, he suggested that such threats against Mecca and Medina could serve to deter Islamic terrorists from staging nuclear attacks on the United States. In the Republican debate of August 5^th, Representative Tancredo portentously intoned: “I read the national intelligence estimate. I see what they are planning. And I’m telling you right now that anybody that would suggest that we should take anything like this off the table in order to deter that kind of event in the Untied States isn’t fit to be president of the United States.”

His declaration drew warm applause from the Iowa audience, and many conservatives across the country (including numerous callers to my radio show) feel instinctively sympathetic to any pledge to use decisive force against our Islamist adversaries.

Rational consideration of Tancredo’s proposal, however, leads inevitably, inescapably to one of two conclusions:

1) He wants the United States to make empty threats that no Commander-in-Chief would ever dare to implement, or

2) He honestly expects our government to respond to a devastating terrorist attack with a course of action guaranteed to increase, rather than reduce, the chance of future assaults, while pushing our economy into ruinous chaos.

In the case of the first alternative, all students of history and statecraft understand the terrible danger when a nation makes promises it can’t fulfill, or pledges retaliation that it has no real intention of delivering.

Osama bin Laden has already derided the United States as a “paper tiger” based on our shameful retreats from Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia and, potentially, Iraq. In the event that our government declared its intention to respond to terrorist devastation by bombing Mecca, he and his colleagues might well feel tempted to subject the West to the ultimate humiliation by calling our bluff. Indeed, any calculating terrorist leader would rightly dismiss the possibility that America would actually conduct a devastating bombing raid against our most powerful Arab ally, thereby severely disrupting the flow of oil on which all Western economies depend. After sustaining the incalculable economic damage of a terrorist nuclear attack on American soil, no sane President would want to insure further commercial devastation by dispatching a fleet of bombers against symbolic targets in the nation with the planet’s richest known oil reserves.

The possibility of following through with such an attack remains so remote, so obviously counterproductive, that any pledge to undertake this response would only encourage jihadists to expose the hollowness of our rhetoric and the limitations of our power. In this sense, far-fetched public warnings about obliterating sacred shrines in Mecca and Medina might actually make terrorist violence more likely than ever. Making threats we don’t mean to actualize weakens, rather than strengthens, our national security.

Meanwhile, even a candidate as illogical and immature as Tom Tancredo should be able to calculate the catastrophic impact of a president ordering the actual incineration of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and Mohammed’s tomb in Medina. Every American understands that Islamo-Nazi terror arises from an all-consuming, suicidal rage against the United States – a rage already so powerful that it’s led thousands of “holy warriors” to blow their own bodies into pieces for the sake of murdering innocent Americans.

Representative Tancredo should confront a simple, obvious question about our terrorist enemies: if we turned the holiest sites in all of Islam in smoldering rubble, would their rage against us increase, or decrease?

Even a two-bit demagogue like the Colorado Congressman must acknowledge that anti-American fury in the Muslim world would not only intensify among jihadists, but would spread quickly among those previously identified as moderate or indifferent. If we feel menaced and overwhelmed by Islamic hostility today, one can only imagine the implacable hatred we would produce by deliberately destroying their holy places.

The violent reaction to such destruction isn’t the subject of mere speculation; it’s actually a matter of record. In February, 2006, operatives for al-Qaeda in Iraq exploded bombs that severely damaged the beloved golden dome of the Al Askari Mosque in Samara—an ancient site sacred to all Shi’ites Muslims. As expected – and, apparently, as intended – the Shi’ite response involved a ferocious increase in sectarian violence, with retaliatory slaying of literally thousands of innocent Sunnis. In light of this reaction to the incomplete destruction of a sectarian shrine, why would anyone expect a less violent result from the total destruction of a far holier Mosque in Mecca that’s equally sacred to Shi’ite and Sunni alike?

Among other things, a strike against the sacred cities of Saudi Arabia would fatally undermine our beleaguered and erstwhile allies in the Islamic world. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, for instance, who visited the White House earlier this week, would face new and irresistible pressure to distance himself from the Mosque-destroying infidels, or else share the blame with them for an atrocity against all of Islam.

Al-Qaeda and allied groups try to recruit future holy warriors by claiming that the United States isn’t simply defending itself and its interests, but rather pursues the implacable purpose of destroying Islam itself. Nothing could substantiate and underscore this argument more effectively than U.S. bombing strikes on non-military targets in Mecca and Medina. Destroying sacred buildings never serves to undermine or disarm bloodthirsty hostility, but only helps to mobilize such rage.

In October of 2000, howling Palestinian mobs opted for a Tancredo-like “retaliation” by ransacking one of the holiest sites of Judaism as part of the second Intifida. Without interference from Yassir Arafat’s security forces, these radicals destroyed and ultimately bulldozed to rubble the venerated tomb of the Biblical patriarch, Joseph. Rather than discouraging the Israelis, this wanton destruction of a cherished building stiffened their resolve to resist, obliterated their illusions and helped bring about the landslide election victory of a new, hard-line Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.

Would anyone expect the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims to react with less indignation to the eradication of Mecca and Medina than did Israelis to the obliteration of Joseph’s tomb?

Of course, apologists for the crazed, delusional rhetoric of Tom Tancredo might argue that bombing holy structures in Mecca and Medina represents only the beginning of a new and necessary “no more Mr. Nice Guy” strategy for the United States – an appropriate but insufficient retaliation for terrorist excesses by Islamists. According to such logic, the American military ultimately will move from blowing up buildings to annihilating people until we finally succeed in breaking the Muslim will to fight back.

In this context, we should consider the example of war-time Japan—where it took the death of more than 3 million human beings, and two devastating atomic bombs, before the thoroughly defeated Empire finally agreed to surrender. Killing a comparable percentage of today’s Muslim population would require at least 50 million deaths. Even assuming some moral justification for such unprecedented genocide, we’re left with a practical problem: where, exactly, would we find our 50 million Muslims to slaughter? Would we try to kill them all in Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or would we try to distribute the carnage throughout the Islamic world?

Of course, it’s an absurd question, and an obscene suggestion, that the United States should lash out at millions of Muslims, the innocent along with the guilty, in response to some new terror attack. As a practical matter of policy, however, the idea of bombing sacred buildings constitutes an even more irrational notion than the concept of slaughtering Islamic civilians at random. Blowing up the Grand Mosque in Mecca would produce at least as many enraged, indignant, and bloodthirsty responses as bombing Muslim population centers. At the same time, destroying a few buildings (unlike strikes against population centers) would do nothing at all to destroy the ability of believers to strike back against the infidels responsible for the outrage.

On my radio show, Jerusalem-based author Victor Mordecai (“Is Fanatic Islam a Global Threat?”) acknowledged that even though bombing Mecca wouldn’t take away Muslim capacity to terrorize societies in the West it would, in fact, remove their inclination to do so. He argued that the definitive destruction of the ancient Kaaba in Mecca (the large, black-draped cubical structure toward which devout Muslims direct their prayers five times each day) would serve a useful purpose: undermining Islamic claims that their God is, indeed, “the greatest.”

According to Mordecai’s logic, tens of millions of previously fervent believers would face a crisis of faith if American bombs succeeded in erasing the focus of their daily devotions and yearly pilgrimages; many of them, he insists, would turn away in disgust from the fanatical faith that had previously animated their lives. Never mind the fact that they’ve maintained their beliefs in the face of abundant prior evidence of the emptiness and falsehood of Mohammed’s promises that Islamic faith and practice would give believers permanent worldwide dominance over benighted infidels. Mordecai declares that turning the Kaaba into an unapproachable glow-in-the-dark nuclear waste dump would serve as the final, definitive rebuttal to Koranic claims, and that most Muslims would, instantaneously, abandon their religion.

Even in the unlikely event that he’s correct, and that the vast majority (say, 90%) of the world’s Islamic believers respond to Mecca’s destruction by abandoning Allah and rejecting the Prophet, that still leaves well over 100 million fanatics even more determined than before to sacrifice their lives, if necessary, to destroy America. The core problem of Islamo-Nazi terror has always been the fierce intensity and determination of the few, not the passive hostility of the many. If bombing Mecca did, in fact, seriously damage Islam’s credibility as a competitive world religion (a very big and doubtful “if”), such action still would leave millions upon millions of enraged fanatics sworn to do whatever it takes to exact mass-murdering revenge. It doesn’t take billions of believers to menace the United States – millions (even thousands) can perform that function quite nicely. On September 11, nineteen crazies with box-cutters managed to butcher thousands and to change the world.

Finally, Tancredo defends his own inflammatory rhetoric by firing back at unidentified political rivals who say we “should take anything like this off the table,” claiming that such nuke-averse wimps aren’t “fit to be President of the United States.” In this rhetorical strafing, the Congressman aims only at straw men rather than actual flesh-and-blood candidates. More serious White House contenders, along with officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department, don’t want the Mecca-bombing option removed, but they don’t want it discussed, either. Opposing Tancredo’s public effort to place a doomsday scenario “on the table” isn’t the same thing as ruling out that possibility as some desperate, worst-case eventuality. The entire Mecca-bombing debate not only damages our present efforts to win cooperation and support from non-radical Muslims, but serves to constrict, rather than enlarge, the real-world policy options a future President might consider in response to some horrific terrorist incident.

In short, only a madman could seriously suggest that threatening Mecca and Medina (even as a campaign stunt) somehow enhances US security. The State Department rightly characterized the Tancredo remarks as “reprehensible” and “absolutely crazy.”

Giving Tancredo the benefit of the doubt, he may not count as crazy because he can’t count as serious. If nothing else, his lamentable “nuke Mecca” musings help to highlight the unmistakable difference between plausible candidates for President of the United States and a shabby, grandstanding demagogue who’ll say anything, and risk any damage to his country, in puerile pursuit of a few fleeting moments of media attention.

With Israeli and Palestinian leaders entering serious negotiations to achieve a “two state” solution, they seem to agree on one misguided proposition: that many – perhaps most – of the 300,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank must ultimately give up the homes they built decades ago and leave the prospective state of Palestine. The obvious question is, why? Palestinians make up some 18% of Israel’s citizens, so why should a future state of Palestine reject an even smaller percentage of Jews in its midst? If settlers choose to stay put, and to raise their children as citizens of Palestine, why won’t Palestinian authorities accept them? If Palestinians are in any way serious about living in peace, why should they demand that the West Bank like Gaza, must become a “Jew free” territory? The forcible removal of Jewish settlers from Gaza did nothing to placate Islamist radicals, but only served to encourage further attacks. It ought to be obvious that a future Palestinian homeland that can’t protect an economically beneficial, non-Arab minority with deep, ancient ties to the land of the West Bank, won’t be ready in any way for either peace, or statehood.

When considering the tragic impact of Islamo-Nazi terror, it’s only natural to think first of hot-spots in the Middle East— like Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel. But a new report for Human Rights Watch shows that since 2000, Islamic fanatics have killed or seriously wounded more than 1,700 civilians in the Philippines – making that island nation an unheralded but bloody front in the war on terror. The report describes Islamists who have “bombed buses carrying workers, food markets where people were shopping, airports where relatives were waiting for loved ones and ferryboats carrying families.” In 2004, they blew up a passenger ship off Manila Bay and killed 116. In Thailand, Islamic terror attacks have also sharply increased, now claiming close to a thousand casualties in the last six years. In Algeria, a stunning 200,000 civilians have died in the ongoing violence between the authoritarian Arab government and the Islamist, fundamentalist rebels. Such brutality in every remote corner of the world shows the global nature of the current struggle. It also shows that jihadist mass murder has little to do with US or Israeli policies – policies that bear virtually no association with the distant, suffering, brutalized (and mostly Christian) innocents who’ve been terribly victimized in the Philippines.

At the beginning of August, Great Britain observed an historic milestone that sends a powerful, topical message to the United States. After 27 years of conflict, the British officially ended their military presence in Northern Island. At one time, they maintained 106 bases and 27,000 troops in the embattled province, but the stunning advance of cooperation between the Catholics and Protestants in the Northern Irish government, and the disarming of sectarian militias, makes British troops unnecessary. A succession of Prime Ministers, both Tory and Labour, wisely defied all calls for a premature pullout from those who insisted that Her Majesty’s forces had no business in the midst of a bitter, seemingly endless civil war. As with American troops in Korea, the nearly three decade British presence has been costly, dangerous and controversial, but ultimately allowed reconciliation and stability to take hold. A similar outcome in Iraq is a distinct possibility, but only if the United States maintains a patient focus on the long-term horizon and our national interest.

Listeners to my radio show today know by now that I met with the President of the United States in the Oval Office this morning, together with nine of my colleagues from conservative talk radio. Though specific quotations from Mr. Bush remain "off the record," I can officially reveal that he seemed energized, optimistic, focused, articulate, comfortable and totally in command. Anyone who doubts that this chief executive enjoys the Presidency and its demands has never seen him in the White House. As the President unequivocally declared (and as I think I'm permitted to quote): "I like the atmosphere in the Oval Office."

Meanwhile, some callers to my radio show sharply questioned the propriety of the White House meeting -- suggesting that it represented some illegitimate effort to mani[ulate the press. In less than a year, I've received three Presidential invitations and flown to Washington each time for the chance to see Mr. Bush. Can I claim to maintain my objectivity when the chief executive himself has worked to build this sort of comfortable and friendly relationship?

And when, precisely, did I ever claim objectivity?

I have never aspired to the role of neutral observer when it comes to political issues or personalities. I'm a commentator, a controversialist, not a reporter who feigns Olympian detachment.

There is nothing unique, by the way, in President Bush cultivating and privileging journalists (in this case talk show hosts) who tend to support him.

As long ago as the Kennedy administration, JFK extended all sorts of privileges and opportunities to his two favorite columnists-- the Alsop brothers, Stuart and Joe. They regularly received White House scoops, background briefings, unparalleled access to the President. Did this amount to some sort of un-American manipulation? Of course not. Everyone knew that the Alsops amounted to semi-official administration spokespeople and defenders.

These relationships don't pose a problem because they're not the President's only connection with the press. Like President Kennedy, President Bush holds regular press conferences where he fields questions from all comers (even David Gregory and-- groan-- Helen Thomas, who's called him the worst President in history).

It's no more surprising or inappropriate that Mr. Bush would limit his special White House invtiations to ideological soul mates, than it is that top Democrats would grant regular interviews to "Air America" but refuse all invitations to answer questions on the Michael Medved Show (or any other conservative program).

Since the purpose of this morning's meeting involved the President's desire to put out a clear, strong message about the War on Terror, it makes all the sense in the world that he would count on broadcasters who support the message he means to send.

As it happens, I'm proud -- not embarrassed in any way -- to try (in any small way) to help our embatttled chief executive in this essential endeavor, which will help to determine the sort of security and prosperity that we pass on to our children.

In preparing my townhall column for Wednesday, I spent some time researching the bloody, brutal history of Palestinian terrorism against Jewish settlements in the Middle East in 1921, 1926, 1929, 1936 and 1937-9. None of these incidents (which included 415 Jewish deaths out of a community of barely 500,000 in '37-39) can be blamed on the State of Israel because that state didn't exist until 1948. The "Yishuv" -- the villages and cities built by Jewish refugees returning to their ancient homeland-- was hardly a military power, and only developed self-defense capacities in response to ceaseless Arab attacks. In other words, contrary to popular belief, the creation of the State of Israel didn't start Arab terrorism, but Palestinian violence convinced even skeptical and pacifist Jews that they needed a well-armed, self-reliant nation-state to protect them from ceaseless and merciless attacks from their Palestinian neighbors. Watch for much more on this subject in my column tomorrow.....

On the long flight home from Israel (we just arrived a few hours ago) I played hooky from digesting today’s newspapers and instead passed the time going through the most influential and popular book ever written about the conflict in the Middle East. Though written in a politically incorrect age some fifty years ago, the book provides timeless words about “the Arab character” that offer useful perspective on the continuing tragedies among Iraqis and Palestinians.

After acknowledging the long-ago glories of Islamic civilization, the author notes that conquest by the Ottoman Turks brought the Arabs “five centuries of feudalism an corruption.”

“….The Arab world disintegrated into filth; unspeakable disease, illiteracy, and poverty were universal. There was little song or laughter or joy in Arab life. It was a constant struggle to survive.

“In this atmosphere cunning, treachery, murder, feuds, and jealousies became a way of life. The cruel realities that had gone into forming the Arab character puzzled outsiders.

“Cruelty from brother to brother was common. In parts of the Arab world thousands of slaves were kept, and punishment for a thief was amputation of a hand, for a prostitute amputation of ears and nose. There was little compassion from Arab to Arab… It was small wonder that the Arabs mistrusted all outsiders… The masses were but pawns in the schemes of the effendis and sheiks. They could be stirred into religious hysteria at the least provocation and were thus useful as political weapons…Greed and lust, hatred and cunning, shrewdness and violence, friendliness and warmth were all part of that fantastic brew that made the Arab character such an enormous mystery to an outsider.”

Of course, apologists for Islamist excess will dismiss these words as the biased ravings of a “Zionist propagandist” and literary “hack”, since novelist Leon Uris hardly concealed his love for the State of Israel in the famous 1958 blockbuster, Exodus. But having just spent ten days leading 200 listeners through an exhausting but uplifting tour through the most dynamic society in the Mille East, it seems obvious that anyone who feels no admiration or sympathy for Israel displays a far more sinister bias. Yes, it’s easy to deride some of the clumsy elements of the novel Exodus, since Uris sprinkles every page with a cringe-inducing surplus of exclamation points and writes about romance in a heavy-breathing, flat-footed style that would make most adolescents blush. A typical passage declares: “Laughter and fire and tears and passion. Being with Marina was like being in a bubbling volcano ready to erupt.”

Nevertheless, Exodus delivers the goods, wrapping surprisingly detailed and accurate history in melodramatic but engaging plot lines involving fictional characters. Despite the contempt the book provokes among contemporary critics and other would-be intellectuals, it still provides a panoramic view of the origins of the state of Israel and its place in Jewish history.

Most importantly, it remains blessedly free of trendy notions of sensitivity, diversity and moral equivalence. This fifty year-old book, still haunted by ghosts of World War II, makes clear that the dysfunctions and dementia of Arab culture never amounted to a reaction to controversial US policies (like the War in Iraq or support for Israel) since those dysfunctions (so memorably delineated by Uris) clearly pre-dated the nation’s current posture toward the Middle East.

In other words, US foreign policy didn’t cause the pathetic breakdown of Arab societies, but rather those policies did represent a reaction to that long-standing record of breakdown and violence. The novelist noted that “cruelty from brother to brother was common” among the Arabs and commented on the “cunning, treachery, murder feuds and jealousies” in their culture—a situation that can hardly be blamed on George W. Bush since he was only in Middle School when those words were written.

For all his faults, Uris also sounds downright prophetic regarding the power of oil. Early in the book, a British general lectures his subordinate that he should never expect fairness in affairs of state. “Foreign policies of this or any other, country are not based on right and wrong. Right and wrong? It is not for you and me to argue the right or the wrong of this question. The only kingdom that runs on righteousness is the kingdom of heaven. The kingdoms of the earth run on oil. The Arabs have oil.”

Of course, Exodus remains a work of fiction, not a prescription for foreign policy, but by using his runaway international bestseller to expose the perpetually self-destructive values and attitudes among Arab leaders, he makes it clear that the prevailing decadence and corruption can hardly be blamed on George W. Bush, the “neo-cons,” or, for that matter the State of Israel.