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.

    Today's commemorations of the 9/11 attacks brought surprising unanimity on one point, at least, in the midst of all the raging controversy concerning current world conflicts. Nearly everyone who spoke today-- whether Republican or Democrat, Right or Left-- acknowledged that the last five years have involved us in a genuine world war, not just a limited police action against a small gang of thugs. Some suggested that this conflict only began with the terrorist horrors of 2001; others more properly recognized that Al-Qaeda's war on the West actually began many years earlier, but our leaders refused to recognize the danger. In any event, the struggle noiw counts as both costly and consequential, not just for the courageous volunteers who comprise our military but for all the rest of us whose safety depends on their success.

   Despite the apparent consensus about the significance of the ongoing struggle against Islamo-Nazi terror, critics of the Bush administration insist that the conflict in Iraq represents only a distration from that larger war, rather than an essential front that could bring either victory or defeat. Anti-war Democrats insist on a distinction between the admittedly evil al-Qaeda terrorists who murdered thousands on 9/11, and the so-called "insurgents" in Iraq who have been described as freedom fighters, and compared to our founding fathers, by the likes of Sheehan and Murtha. 

  Unfortunately for the liberal peaceniks, the same al-Qaeda leaders they decry (including Bin Laden and his chief deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri) fail to recognize any such distinction between their own ongoing efforts and the cause of the Iraqi resistance. In all of their recent video and audio tapes (the latest of which they thoughtfully released as part of the September 11 observances) they describe the bloodthirsty, sectarian killers in Iraq as their brothers and comrades-in-arms, insisting that their ultimate success depends entirely on driving the United States and our Arab allies from "the land of the two rivers" (Iraq).

   Even if you discount al-Qaeda claims of solidarity with the Iraqi "resistance," even if you buy the Senate Democrats' contested insistence that there was no pre-war connection between Saddam and Bin Laden, you must take seriously the priority the terrorist high command now places on the current front of battle. If we recognize al-Qaeda as our mortal enemy (and nearly all Americans do) then defeating that adversary means denying his principal goals and, ultiamtely, destroying his ability to make war. The fact that the terrorists have concentrated their remaining resources on Iraq (as made clear in a brilliant New York Post column today by Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters) and explicitly identified this battlefield as their make-or-break last stand, compels us to focus on this front of struggle, regardless of hesitations about the initial Mesopotamian campaign.

  One of the persistent questions concerning the shifting tides of battle in the war against Islamo-Fascist terror involves definitions of victory and (God forbid) of defeat. With an enemy broadcasting his intentions to the whole world and explicitly stating his purposes and priorities, that definitional task remains surprisingly simple. Victory requires the ability to keep the enemy from achieving his primary goal; defeat consists of allowing the enmy the achievement of that goal. Since the al-Qaeda leadership repeatedly describes their chief aim as driving America out of Iraq and taking over the world's second largest oil reserves it ought to be obvious that granting them this purpose hands them an overwhelming victory, that will encourage our adversaries everywhere to renew their efforts to harm us. Preventing the enemy from reaching his aim is a necessary component in achieving success, but it may not constitute victory by itself (without accompanying political success in Iraq). Granting the enemy his principal goal-- the withdrawl of all coalition forces --is, however, a sufficient circumstance for defining defeat.

   With virtually all Americans recognizing on September 11th the profound significance of the War on Terror, we ought to achieve similar unanimity in rejecting those who want to abandon the field to hand victory to the enemy, and smugly urge the retreat under fire that would amount to a devastating (and devastatingly obvious) American disaster.  

  Now that America has seen the first three hours of the superb ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11," without damage to the foundations of the Republic or the total destruction of Bill Clinton's sacred historic reputation, will the Democratic Party hacks who derided the show (sight unseen) as "right wing propaganda" stand up and apologize for their groundless, mindless hysteria?

  Don't count on it, since liberals find it nearly impossible to admit to imperfection. Consider: the mere suggestion that Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger and Madeline Albright and George Tenet fell somewhat short of perfection in their eight years of dealing with al Qaeda, provoked the furious (and censorious) assault on the TV series in the first place. Of course, for the Democrats who love to boast of their status as preening protectors of the First Amendment, it might be difficult to concede that they behaved like bozos in the run-up to Sunday night's epic broadcast. Those who watched the first instalment of the miniseries might imagine how the producers could have turned the occasion into a partisan, anti-Clinton diatribe but anyone with open eyes would also acknowledge that what the world saw didn't qualify as hostile, one-sided or, in any meaningful sense, dishonest.

  The question to ask of any historical dramatization (wheter Oliver Stone's "JFK" or Steven Spielberg's "Amistad," or Spike Lee's "Malcolm X") isn't whether every detail, every specific scene, is precisely faithful to historical record. No movie or TV presentation could every achieve that sort of accuracy at the same time it held the dramatic attention of the audience. Instead, the real question for any retroactive media treatment of actual events is whether the producers told the basic story fairly and honestly, without ludicrous or purposeful distortions. All fair-minded people ought to conclude that the ABC miniseries fulfilled this goal, while taking limited dramatic license to compress some of the complicated events it covered. Several histories of the Clinton administration, for instance, specify ten different occasions when the U.S. might have killed or captured bin Laden, but the miniseries compressed all those chances into just two. 

   Finally, this whole episode provides one more powerful argument for getting out to vote in November to prevent a Democratic takeover of Congress. The factor persuading any waverers has nothing to do with what you saw on TV on Sunday night, but everything to do with shameful Democratic attempts to prevent you from seeing anything at all. The Democratic National Committee launched a concerted attempt to get ABC to "yank" the project from its schedule (after the network spent $40 million on the production). Most shamefully of all, several US Senators--led by the inveterate publicity hound Charles ("Chuck E Cheese") Schumer-- wrote to ABC threatening to investigate broadcast licenses if stations chose to air the miniseries. Because the Dems remain for now in the minority, TV networks and stations could afford to ignore their menacing messages, but if (God forbid) they ever took over Congress it would prove far more risky for any broadcaster to defy them. If you enjoyed the non-partisan, illuminating substance of "The Path to 9/11" then please defend your chance to view similar TV programming in the future without interference by Chuck Schumer and other avatars of political correctness who want to control all discourse in Amrican popular culture.The upcoming election remains a crucial crossroads for the Republic that demands the participation of all epople of conscience and good will.  

   As of this posting (Friday afternoon, 6.30 Pacific Time) the liberal campaign to censor the ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11" has reached new heights of demagogic hysteria. Tom McMahon, executive director of the Democratic National Committee sent out an e-mail to supporters that began: "This is it: crunch time for getting the slanderous ABC television docudrama 'The Path to 9/11' yanked off the air. The network schedule has this slanderous attack on Democrats slated to start on Sunday night, September 10, at 8 o'colck -- and as long as it stays ont he schedule, we have work to do. Take a minute right now and tell Disney president Robert Iger to keep this right wing propaganda off the airwaves."

  Unlike Mr. McMahon and his hyperventilating Democratic colleagues, I've actually watched the miniseries in question-- in its entirety -- and there is no chance that any sane observer who bothers to sit through all five hours of this riveting presentation could ever describe it as "right wing propaganda." As a matter of fact, the miniseries is particularly hard on the Bush administration and Condaleezza Rice, as well as highlighting the way that Clinton and his aides fell short in their dealing with the terrorist threat. In terms of running time of the presentation, at least ninety minutes of the mini series focuses on events during the Bush presidency-- representing at least 30% of the total program. Meanwhile, Bush was president during the period covered by the miniseries (February, 1993, through September 11, 2001) for only eight months; Clinton was president for eight years (less a single month). In other words, Clinton occupied the White House for 93% of the actual historical period under consideration, but his shortcomings occupy less than 70% of the miniseries running time.

  In other words, by one easily quantifiable measure, "The Path to 9/11" doesn't inapporpirately focus on Clinton and his failures; if anything, it concentrates disproportionately on the disappointing performance of President Bush at the very beginning of his term.

   The most depressing aspect of the concentrated Democratic campaign to "yank" (their word) this 40 million dollar production from the ABC schedule would be the message such censorship would send to other networks and producers. If ABC does (God forbid) decide to cancel the much-hyped showing of the miniseries because of liberal pressure, then everyone in Hollywood would learn the lesson that you must avoid serious projects, at all costs; you can easily get away with "Wife Swap" or "Temptation Island" or "Fear Factor," but if you attempt to broadcast a chilling, carefully crafted, deeply moving investigation of our national, bi-partisan failures in responding to terrorism, then some yahoo will squal and protest and attempt to shut you down. This is the text-book definition of censorship: prior restraint. That means cutting off speech before it even occurs, rather than protesting - or correcting the record- after you've actually heard what the other guy has to say.

   Nor is the current Democratic effort to censor ABC in any substantive sense comparable to the conservative protests against the CBS miniseries about "The Reagans." The objection to that show was that President Reagan, stricken with Alzheimer's disease, had no possibility of responding to the sleazy, intimately personal attack on his reputation. By contrast, Bill Clinton can easily respond to any perceived cheap shot in the "The Path to 9/11" --- in fact he already has responded, while admitting he hasn't even seen the thing. The network is already making adjustments to the final edit to register some of President Clinton's objections. One can only hope that they stop there, rather than surrendering to the mob mentality, complete with pitchforks and torches, mobilized by Democratic Party demagogues who demand the cancellation of the miniseries.

  That cancellation would represent a tragedy for the producers --who've already experienced the most vitriolic personal attacks, complete with publication of their home addresses, accompanied by death threats (one of them pronounced on my radio show, earlier today, by a troglodyte caller who talle writer-producer Cyrus Nowasteh "I hope you die") and warnings that "the gloves are off."

  Please, put the gloves back on. Recognize that weeks ago ABC scheduled a one hour panel discussion after airing the miniseries so that people who objected to it in any way could make their opinions heard. As Justice Brandeis famously observed, the best remedy for bad ideas is good ones; the best response to bad speech is good speech. Free discourse -- and the whole medium of television -- will suffer if ABC buckles to pressure to stifle one of the most significant and substantive productions in TV history. 

   The widespread frustration in this electoral season has given rise to perhaps the dumbest political idea in recent U.S. history: the notion that the way to advance the conservative cause is to insure the defeat of conservative candidates.

   Frequent callers to my radio show have echoed the arguments of numerous e-mailers, and a few fringe commentators, suggesting that a Republican wipeout in November of 2006 would punish the GOP for its many failures and betrayals, thereby insuring the emergence of a new, more conservative, more ideologically committed party in place of the feckless current operation. Another element of this demented desire for defeat involves the belief that life under the Democrats would prove so bitter, so unendurable, that after a few years of suffering the public would welcome back the Republicans with enthusiasm and gratitude. To bolster this case, the Death Wish Republicans cite Jimmy Carter's narrow victory over Gerald Ford in 1976. After four years of utterly incompetent leadership by the pompous peanut farmer, the Republicans nominated a true, unaplogetic conservative named Ronald Reagan and he won in a landslide.

   There are several obvious points that discredit these silly arguments for anyone who wants to give the issue more than a moment's thought.

   First, and most importantly, the idea that Republicans can benefit from making the country suffer under Democratic misrule is disgusting, selfish, idiotic and unpatriotic. Can there be any more revolting example of putting partisan advantage over the national welfare? Anyone who seriously believes that it's worth damaging the nation to bring about future political gain is not only a fool, but the sort of traitorous fanatic who should never be trusted in responsible positions.

   Consider for a moment the real example of Jimmy Carter, so beloved of Death Wish Republicans. Under his watch, the Soviets invaded Aghanistan (beginning a nightmare from which we still haven't awakened), the Communist Sandinistas seized Nicaragua, and the Islamo-Nazi Mullahs deposed the Shah (with Carter's cooperation) and installed the fanatical regime that still threatens the world today. On the domestic front, Carter launched vast new governmental programs (including the utterly unnecessary new cabinet departments of Energy and Education) that neither Ronald Reagan nor any subsequent president has managed to eliminate. In other words, the appallingly inept Georgian did permanent damage to the country, both domestically and in foreign policy, from which all Americans still suffer, but the political gain for the GOP was merely temporary: by 1986, a mere six years after Carter left office, the Dems had regained control of the Senate and just six years after that they took back the White House (for two terms of Clinton). You can't build a successful political movement for the long term on the idea that you're going to turn over power to your opponents so they will proceed to wreck the country.

   On the immigration issue, for instance, a new Democratic Congrss would be far more accomodating to the open-borders extremists than even earned-legalization Republicans like Bush and McCain. A new Congress could pass immigration reform that's far more generous to illegals (who the Dems view as their future supporters) than anything in the reviled current Senate bill. And once Democrats authorize automatic (or very easy) legal status for twelve million illegals, it's virtually impossible to undo the damage. Does anyone believe that some future Congress would vote to strip green cards or citizenship from people who have already received this legalization?

   Moreover, the idea that the Republicans would react to a devastating electoral loss by shifting resolutely to the right is an ignorant, historically illiterate fantasy. It is the nature of American politics that badly beaten parties try to regain power not by moving in a more ideologically uncompromising direction, but rather by moving to the center. If politicians have been rejected by the people, their unfailing instinct is to try to win over the "swing" voters they have lost by fudging the difference between them and the other guys, not by accentuating those distinctions. It has always worked that way after a decisive electoral trouncing. Consider the recent example of Bill Clinton: when he got clobbered in the "Contract With America" Republican Congressional sweep of 1994, he didn't move to the Left; instead, he tried to sound more and more like a Republican. He not only dropped his prior schemes to take over the health care system and force gays into the military, he dropped his objection to welfare Reform (which he had previously vetoed), declared in his inaugural "the era of big government is over," and suddenly discovered the virtues of a balanced budget. Defeat didn't liberate Clinton's inner liberal; it forced him to moderate his positions and his image to steal the center from the new Republican Congress. By the same token, it's insane and illogical to expect George W. Bush to take a more conservative stance if he's suddenly confronted with a Democratic Congress in January, 2007. He would naturally, irresistibly, move further away from conservative principles both in order to get along with the new Congressional leadership and to win back centrist voters from his adversaries.

   Those who dream that Republican defeat will produce a more vigorous, more unapologetically conservative Republican Party need to look at recent history. Each time there's an electoral disaster, it's not the ideologically pure true-believers who pick up the pieces, it's the split-the-difference moderates. In 1964, after the GOP went down to crushing defeat behind the courageous conservative Barry Goldwater, the conservatives quickly lost their brief control of the party and the next nomination (in 1968) went to the decidedly more moderate Richard Nixon. Four years later, it ws the Democrats' turn to nominate an idealogue for President (George McGovern) and to suffer electoral catastrophe (losing 49 of 50 states). As a result, McGovern and his ideological brethren lost control of the party apparatus and the next nominee was the purportedly moderate, Born-Again, mild-mannered Southerner, Jimmy Carter. The other 49 state sweep (by Reagan against Mondale and Ferraro in 1984), once again forced the Democrats to shift toward the center, leading to the nomination of proudly "non-ideological" New Democrats Michael Dukakis (in 1988) and Bill Clinton (in 1992).

   The model that the Death Wish Republicans describet--- of suffering disastrous defeat, and then moving even further away from the center-- has never, ever worked in the long history of the US two party system. There is no logical, empirical basis for the suggetion that suffering decisive reverses will help you in the long run.

   Political success is about electing people who agree with you more than their their opponents do,  not electing the people who agree with you less. You can't help the country- or yourself - by enacting policies that you despise and fear. Leninist revolutionaries may believe that "the worse it gets, the better it gets" --- assuming that bad conditions bring the populace to such an enraged state that they're ready for regime shattering violence. But in a peaceful Republic, deliberately stoking public rage and suffering is a dangerous game since the chances are that the resentment and anger will be directed (at least in part) at you.

   Finally, anyone who knows anything about the operation of the two party system understands the profound institutional advantage of holding office. If you control the Presidency, most governorships and Congressional majorities, you get the chance to appoint loyalists and colleagues to an army of governmental offices. Of course, it would be better to trim or eliminate those bureaucracies, but while they exist they confer huge political advantages on those who dominate them. In terms of fund-raising, the party in power also does better than the opposition, since corporations and unions and special interests must deal with the ruling coalition. These formidable advantages in patronage and money may yet rescue the Republicans in the campaign of 2006-- and they would unquestionably help Democrats for 2008 if they took over major offices in this campaign cycle. In addition to punishing Republicans (whether or not the individual office holder deserves it), GOP losses would reward Democrats-- and give them an entrenched head start for the next election.

   Family feuds are fun, and many GOP'ers find it all but irresistible to talk about spanking the party that has disappointed them. But the right way to shift the party in a more decisively conservative direction is to contest and win primaries-- as several conservative candidates have done (against more moderate incumbents) already in this primary season. There's no question that the long-term health of the party depends on articulating clear distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals.

   But electoral defeat won't help that process; it will only help undermine it, as worried politicians will scurry toward the center, as they always due when feeling threatened. The idea that GOP defeats actually help the party is every bit as ridiculous as the wacko Third Party mantra that winning 1% of the vote and winning no elective office actually constitutes a great victory. Politics is a business of momentum, and you never help yourself by giving momentum to your adversaries. Unfortunately for the Death Wish Republicans, the rules of common sense and political history still apply, and it still makes not the slightest bit of sense to try to win by losing.

  President Bush announced today the transfer of 14 top terrorist prisoners to the special prison at Guantanamo. He wants them to face justice with the same sort of military commissions that the US used in the Civil War, World War II and other major conflicts, but Democrats (and some "moderate" Republicans) want to employ more normal civilian or military judicial procedures.

   This seemingly technical disagreement actually highlights a crucial contrast in approaching the war on terror: should our adversaries be treated as enemy combatants, or as common criminals? In a sense, treating them as combatants (with the same rights as prisoners of war) accords them more dignity than they deserve, since they don''t wear uniforms and they are not affiliated with a normal or recognizable army or state. But treating them as criminals -- with the full civil liberties protections accorded to criminal suspects -- raises far deeper problems. Some of these fanatical terrorists will, inevitably, be released on technicalities, or for lack of evidence, or else receive light sentences (for mitigating factors?) that guarantee their release after a few years. The problem with that is that these individuals would almost certainly return to their dedicated plotting to inflict death and destruction on the United States.

  Nations hold Prisoners of War indefinitely, until a peace agreement or a surrender, because of the recognition that a POW is never "rehabilitated," has never paid his "debt to society," is never deserving of release until the war is over for the nation he serves. Would American have released Japanese or German prisoners at the height of World War II with any confidence that they would then return home to pusue the paths of peace? The answer is obvious-- and as a matter of fact, the desire to seek release of POW's can be a powerful motivator for our enemies to pursue some meaningful peace settlement (were that ever imaginable with terrorist gangs). The United States, for instance, cared deeply about the prisoners of war held by the Vietnamese and the desire to secure their release helped drive the Paris Accords and other efforts to end the war.

  In addition to the inevitable breaches of security and revelations of secret information that would occur in normal courtroom procedures for terrorist kingpins (as described today on my radio show by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow), the treatment of terrorists as criminals sends precisely the wrong message to the US public and to the world: bringing us back to the bad-old-days of Clintonism, which treated the terror threat as a law endorcement matter, not a war. That's a reversion we can ill afford -- especially when the enemy (in contrast to some American politicians) understands we're engaged in a true World War and continues to act accordingly.

  One of the joys of the Labor Day holiday from work (on my radio show, we played a pre-recorded program about the myths and misunderstandings concerning World War II) is the ability to steal a few moments to listen to music-- and to go through the stack of new CD's I've recently acquired with eager anticipation, but with no time to savor them with proper concentration.

  Finally, then, I've gotten the chance to savor a magnicent new album of piano Nocturnes by Dave Brubeck--- yes, that Dave Brubeck -- the 86-year-old jazz immortal who, in the last few years, has earned new acclaim as a signficant composer of classical music. Whether or not you've already developed a taste for classical piano pieces, or for jazz, you will adore these atmospheric, romantic, captivating pieces. Like the famous nocturnes by Chopin (or Irish composer John Field, who inspired Chopin) these little piano tone poems  (26 of them on one disc) convey the sense of velvety, sensuous, star-kissed darkness-- the night as a time of magic and possibility and love. As Brubeck himself explains in the useful liner notes, all of the brief Nocturnes "rise out of his personal life," with loving tributes to his wife and his grandchildren, as well as titles like "Looking at a Rainbow" (recalling a memorable visit to Tokyo) or "Memories of a Viennese Park,." or "A Misty Morning." Whther you sit and listen and let the dreamy tones whisk you away (masterfully played by Brubeck's disciple, pianist John Salmon), or you choose to use the music as background for a midnight glass of wine, or a fire in the family room, or an intimate dinner with your significant other, these polished, instantly expressive gems are easy to cherish and impossible to resist.

   If you enjoy the music of George Gershwin (and who doesn't, really?) and feel cheated, as I do, by his ridiculously early death at age 38 and his correspondingly limited output, discovering this CD is like unearthing a whole new treasure chest of Gershwin piano pieces. Many of the Brubeck Nocturnes convey the yearning and nostalgia that Gershwin communicated in "The George Gershwin Songbook" (his own piano arrangements of his most popular songs) but here the melodious materials also become tiny tone poems, impressionistic sound paintings, conveying distinctive and varied experiences and emotions. Distinctly American, vaguely jazzy and sentimental, rich as sunsets and and autumn haze and yes, rainbows, the Brubeck Nocturnes wil enhance your life. They're available at an absurdly low price, too, despite the resonant, crisply articulated, unfailingingly vivid recording quality by the experts at NAXOS, that makes even inexpensive reproduction systems sound audiofile. The CD is listed as DAVE BRUBECK NOCTURNES, from NAXOS, serial number 8.559.301. It's  55 full (and fulfilling) minutes of music, recorded in North Carolina in 2005, with a list price of $8.99--- but frequently available for about seven bucks. It's a can't- miss investment in inspiration and romance.  

  Anti-Americanism is a disease-- a virulent epidemic that has infected even our closest ally, the United Kingdom. Last week, the British not only unveiled a new movie featuring a realistic staging of the assassination of President Bush ("The Death of the President") but also found a way to blame the United States for an aviation accident half way around the world.

  The BBC-- the prestigious, government supported network in television and radio -- reported on the frightening plane crash in the Iranian city of Mashdad, site of a popular but remote Shia shrine, 620 miles north-east of Teheran. The Russian-built jet, carrying 148 passengers, skidded off the runway and burst into flames after landing, killing at least 29 of those on board. While noting that "Iran Air Tours" sustained deadly crashes in 2002, 1993 and 1992, the BBC observed:

   "Iran has a terrible record of airline safety, our correspondent says.

   "One reason for this is US sanctions, which prevent the Iranian government from buying spare parts for its ageing fleet or purchasing new aircraft from major aviation companies in the West, she adds."

   In other words, if an Iranian jet, built in Russia (the notorious "Tupolev-154) and purchased from the Russians, suffers an accident on landing in a remote shrine city (probably from a burst tire, observers guessed), then the BBC still finds a way to blame the United States.

   Nothing about the dysfunctional nature of Iranian society, the inferior technology and craftmanship in Russian planes, the isolation from the international community caused by the radical policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadina-whackjob and the Mullah-cracy--- nope, no other explanation of the deepest causes of Iran's lousy aviation record beyond citing "U.S. sanctions."

   The instinct to find some basis for criticizing the United States in even the most unrelated mishaps underlines the fact that America Hatred isn't just an attitude, or a political position: it is an illness with, at the moment, no known cure.

   The bizarre biases of major media outlets emerge just as clearly from sins of omission as sins of commission. Consider a recent review in USA TODAY of a new novel about "The Love Story of the Century" -- the romance between King Edward VIII and the American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson. The new book, "Gone with the Windsors," takes an appropriately dim view of this distinctively dim (and ultimately pro-Nazi) couple, but the newspaper provided a sidebar with historical background that showed the typically selective press sympathy for Edward and Mrs. Simpson. Under the heading "A real, royal mess" the editors provided the following "brief history of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor."

  "1932: Edward, the Prince of Wales, meets Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee married to her second husband

    Jan. 20, 1936: Edward's father, King George V, dies. Edward becomes King Edward VIII.

    Dec. 10, 1936: Edward becomes the only British monarch to abdicate his throne voluntarily when he is not allowed to marry a divorcee.

    June 3, 1937: Edward marries Simpson after her divorce from Ernest Simpson becomes final. The exiled couple are called the Duke and Duchess of Windsor."

   These details may be accurate as far as they go, but they end up distorting the essential nature of the controversy that led to the abdication. As far as the opponents of Edward's love affair were concerned the main problem with the relationship wasn't the fact that Mrs. Simpson was a commoner, an American, or even a divorcee-- it was that she was a MARRIED woman, who was living with her husband when she began her relationship with Edward. In other words, there was a little matter of adultery-- and the valid concern that the whole nation and the institution of the monarchy would suffer if the king could very visibly steal another man's wife with impunity.

   By ignoring the essential nature of "The Love Story of the Century," sympathetic reporters then and now managed to suggest a self-sacrificing nobility in the Windsor's connnection that hardly matches the tawdry nature of their real-life affair. Of course, that affair bears more than a passing resemblance to the similarly inexplicable connection between another Prince of Wales, Edward's relative Charles, and his formerly married inamorata (now wife), Camilla. The fact that the Charles-Camilla marriage provoked so much less controversy than the Edward-Mrs. Simpson nuptials illustrates the decline in both public morals and, of course, the monarchy itself.

   This weekend, I've been intimately entangled with the federal government, making contact with two different departments of the gargantuan beast, with very different results.

   On the one hand, I've been struggling with the requirements of the Internal Revenue Service and trying to prepare (at last!) my 2005 tax return. Aside from the ridiculously large chunk of my personal earnings that has already made its way to Washington, D.C. (a comparable percentage to what President Bush and Vice President Cheney pay, on a mere fraction -- believe me! -- of the lavish incomes they make) the complexity and intrusiveness of the whole tax system drives me crazy. I don't think of myself as a stupid person, and I'm even pretty good (not great, like my Dad) with numbers, but like most Americans I would be totally lost if required to fill out my own tax return. This situation is insane--- I've been spending hours and hours over the last few weeks (time which could have been used to earn more money, create more wealth) trying to come to grips with all the bureacratic demands of the IRS. So help me, I'd be willing to pay even more than I do if they'd just leave me alone and not make the absurd demands on my time -- not to mention my accountant's time, for which he's handsomely remunerated (by me, of course). Anyway, the demands of completing these tax forms have cast a dark cloud over the entire weekend -- since I'm going in to the office at 7 a.m. Monday to take care of everything-- even while my experience with another government program gave me a much more benign view of the feds.

   That benign view came from our visit to Mount Rainier National Park. We've been to the park at least a dozen times before, and on clear days we can see the mountain (all 14,411 feet of it) from our home in the Seattle area. This trip, however, was special -- my dad is visiting from his home in Jerusalem and we made a three day journey in glorious weather to some of the most stunning vistas, cystalline waterfalls and enchanted forests anywhere on God's green earth. Mt. Rainier became a National Park in 1899 and whatever else the feds have done wrong (and there's a long, long list) they've done a remarkably good job in managing the parks that preserve our natural treasures. Even the most skeptical conservatives should look at an operation like Mt. Rainier with gratitude, and a sense that some tax dollars are well invested. At the moment, the National Park Service is in the midst of protecting (from earthquakes) and preserving the glorious, historic Paradise Inn on the flanks of the mountain, and building a new visitor center to replace a 1960's "space age" UFO-resembling atrocity with a more rustic facility which, based on the artists' renderings, will fit the landscape in a far less jarring manner.

  Meanwhile, millions of people visit this glorious park and discover that the picnic areas, hiking trails, entrance stations, restrooms, and all the rest of it provide first class hospitality. One highly personal example struck me with particular force. On the Sabbath day (Saturday) the whole family (my Dad, my wife Diane, and our two kids still at home, Shayna and Danny) took a brief hike together, but I wanted to make a more ambitious trek. The problem is that one of the restrictions for Sabbath observers involves the avoidance of carrying (since transporting objects from place to place represents the essence of commerce) which means no water bottle, or canteen, or compass, or map. Nevertheless, I tried to familiarize myself with the trail system ahead of time and headed out on my own, with an aggressive agenda. The trails were well maintained but totally deserted (I only encountered one other hiker on the whole trip) and I managed an elevation gain of nearly 1,500 feet-- exhausting and energizing, as I pushed upward in hopes of connecting with the legendary Pacific Crest Trail. Meanwhile, for all the joys of walking straight up through fragrant spruce-and-fir forest to the edge of timber line, I began to feel a bit worried about my situation. By two p.m. I'd left my family more than five miles behind, climbed up the side of a valley floor, and nearly fallen twice on a steep and very narrow trail. Since I was hiking alone -- with no cell phone or other means to call for help -- I began feeling a bit concerned--- experienced hikers generally frown on going it alone. Moreover, as the miles mounted up I couldn't be sure that I knew exactly where I was going. Had I made some wrong turn down below? How much longer before I connected with the Pacific Crest Trail-- a veritable superhighway in the woods?

   In any event, my little melodrama came to an end at precisely the right moment when, after several hours of wildnerness wandering without encountering a soul, I came upon a very welcome trail sign---a handsome, rustic wood marker, with clear indications of directions and distances. It occurred to me at that point that this sign wasn't a natural fixture of the landscape: somebody (a federal employee, no doubt) had gone to the trouble of trekking deep into the forest himself and placing the marker for my convenience, and for the assistance of all the other intrepid hikers who would make their way along the mountain paths. The notion that our federal government had paid for this investment made me feel a bit better about all the thousands and thousands I'd been sending to the IRS.

  And there's one more point along these lines-- another unmistakable demonstration that sometimes tax money can be put to good use. When we came into Mt. Rainier National Park we stopped at the Sunrise-White River Entrance Station to pay our fee. The very pleasant lady ranger mentioned the alternatives: a $15 pass would cover our whole car and all its passengers for a full week, or else a Golden Eagle Passport would give us unlimited access to all National Parks for the next twelve months for $65. In the last six or seven years, I've always gotten a Golden Eagle but with my schedule the way it looks this year, I wasn't sure we'd make enough National Park visits to make it worthwhile. At this point the lady ranger noted my dad on the seat beside me and asked, politely, if he was my father, and if he was over 62. I answered that he was indeed my dear old dad and, despite his youthful, vigorous appearance, he is, in fact 80. She then made us aware of a new option: a "Golden Age" pass which, for ten dollars, would allow my father and all other members of his party, into the National Park for this visit, and into all other National Parks for the rest of his life. As she explained: this pass doesn't expire until you do! What a deal! Of course, we got my dad the Golden Age Pass, and I couldn't stop thinking about what a great idea it was.

  After all, my American-born father served his country in World War II, paid his US taxes every year until he moved to Israel at age 64 (and for some years after that, actually) and now could receive something back for these contributions: a lifetime, very low cost access pass to the National Parks he loves. Somebody came up with a beautiful idea-- encouraging Americans of retirement age to make the most of their remaining years of life and vigor by visiting the most glorious nature preserves on earth.... better than Disney World, or any Caribbean cruise! There's something about the institution of National Parks -- preserving timeless grandeur for all succeeding generations - that ought to be particularly gratifying for those Americans Rush Limbaugh likes to call "seasoned citizens."

   Some bureaucrat in the Department of Interior/National Park Service undoubtedly came up with this lovely concept, and this Washington careerist deserves our thanks--- as do the other governmental employees who manage to overcome the mind-numbing mediocrity and incompetence of the federal monstrosity and, defying the odds, serve the people with occasional pride and professionalism.