Al Queda and Sadr are taking hits all over Iraq, as the Surge progresses successfully and the tribesmen continue to ally with the govt. against Al Queda. Sadr's power is being eroded in all areas. He may be returning to Iran shortly.

The Enemedia continues to push propaganda, playing the body count game, and ignoring what the real focus of the  situation should be. Al Queda is the central enemy in Iraq, and the reason we are there. But the country continues to come alive and rebuild.

Democrats continue to show that they absolutely cannot be trusted to defend this country. They're afraid of debating on FoxNews channel with the CBC, even when being offered the chance to pick the moderators AND questions. A free pass to spew their propaganda. Cowards, unworthy of office.

And the Senate continues to attempt to foist a false premise on the American people over illegal immigration. As the link Wil posted at the Ramblings of an Average American reveals, Rasmussen has crunched some interesting polling:

it clearly indicates that there is no broad support for a policy that begins with an assumption that those who already live here should be allowed to stay.

This is not the opinion of some small racist extremist core. And it is broad based across all partisan lines.

Grass roots America is upset, not the fringe. And they're angry at our politicians, not Hispanics. Frank Miele, writing in the Daily Inter Lake in Montana has said:

last week I proposed that the people of the United States, through their state legislatures, ought to take back the reins of power and ask for — no, demand! — a convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution — in particular, an amendment that requires border enforcement and denies citizenship to anyone in this country illegally, including those who were born here because their parents were here illegally.

Government run schools continue to fail our young citizens, increasing their vulnerability to the Left Wing indoctrination rampant on college campuses. Fred Thompson sadly notes about a study he read:

The report's conclusion was that American colleges and universities are failing to increase their students' knowledge of America's history and institutions.

My point is that we are under a two pronged assault here at this place in time. Though many are correct to say the WOT is a clear and present danger to our existence, we should never forget the danger within, the Culture War that would destroy our Republic.

The air around this immigration bill debate has gotten so thick that it's becoming increasingly difficult to carry on the conversation. But something is becoming increasingly clear. The Right is splintering. And it's being helped by the sword held by the Left. RACISTS, XENOPHOBES. I'm hearing these as the denunciation of anyone who has a problem with this effort at what's being called "compromise".

This bill is being rammed down the throats of America in a way guaranteed to elicit the response it's getting. Why is this? The American Voters do not matter. That is why. This is about a power grab for 20% of the future population of the United States. Yours and My opinions do not matter. This compromise is between Liberals in the Democratic and Republican party, and as such should be unacceptable to most reasonable Americans. Reasonable Americans do care and support Immigration, they just want it done correctly. They don't hate hispanics, they don't want them shot crossing the border, they don't want to deny them jobs.

No, reasonable Americans see this bill as a smokescreen to flood this country with immigrants in a way that will overwhelm our entitlement system, destroy Social Security, and create a Socialistic Entitlement Utopia.

Yet, Reasonable Americans are truly willing to see a compromise. Border Security with iron clad benchmarks that are factually measured. True and thorough background checks before any ID is issued. All State, County and Municipalities required to cooperate with Immigration enforcement.

Rebecca Hagelin at the Heritage Foundation warns:

One of the many tragic results of this bill is that people will begin to flood over the border in numbers yet unseen in this country to register for the probationary period. An illegal immigrant needs only two affidavits (one of which can be from a family member) stating that he or she has been here and illegally working before January of this year. Any alien now in custody for entering the country illegally, or anyone caught crossing the border, will actually be offered the opportunity to fill out the paperwork to be put on the road to the entire package of U.S. benefits. Some 12 million people are estimated to take this first step to becoming a protected member of the United States on some level. They will immediately be able to enjoy free emergency health care, free public education and free welfare programs for children.

Can this nation afford such a tidal wave? Or the one following when every relative of the new immigrants come?

We need immigration. This nation will prosper from the skills and abilities new citizens can bring. But that's not what is at work here. It's blind cynical politics. A bid for votes. And the Left is skewering the Right. Anything other than submission to this plan is being played as ANTI IMMIGRATION REFORM. It couldn't be farther from the truth. Yet you'll hear constant statements in the Enemedia like this, from the LA Times:

"Blood runs thicker than politics," said Sosa, of San Antonio, who is helping organize a fundraiser for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat who is Latino. "I'm not saying I would vote for a Democrat. But I'm saying I would not vote for a Republican who opposed immigration reform."

So here I stand trying to plead with you all to stop and think. What exactly are you going to get with this? Is it worth the price? Is there a better way? Is there a more reasonable way to bring new immigrants into this country and deal the the millions of illegal aliens we already have? Or should we just accept what Ted Kennedy and John McCain tell us is the truth? The House will have to draft it's own version.

The next GOP debate will be a doozy.

I'm hearing over and over in the media that the deportation of Illegal Aliens in America is not possible. Why is this so? Sheer numbers? Their invisibility in society's dark corners? Or is it simply the obstinate will of Liberal America to keep them for their own uses? Maybe all of the above.

But even if some kind of reasonable form of Comprehensive Immigration reform is passed (unlikely), there will remain the problem of those illegal aliens who are CRIMINALS and are doing bad things to law abiding citizens, and who need to be arrested, put in jail, and deported. Not an unreasonable view I think. Why isn't this happening on a larger scale now?

One reason is the "sanctuary city" that refuses to allow it's law enforcement agencies to indentify and arrest Illegal Aliens. Cities like Detroit and Minneapolis for example. In Minneapolis, a sex slavery operation was ignored by the city police because the sex slaves were Illegal Aliens. And the city even objected to the use of the word police on the jackets of those arresting the criminals. That's Liberal America for you.

Powerline noted:

Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman offered an amendment to the pending immigration act that would prohibit cities from banning the obtaining of information on immigration status by their own law enforcement agencies.

Unfortunately, Norm's amendment was defeated 49-48 on the Senate floor today, even though several Democrats voted for it. These Republicans voted against the proposal:

Graham (R-SC)
Hagel (R-NE)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Voinovich (R-OH)

That's right, seven Republicans voted against arresting Illegal Aliens, and one of them was my Senator from Ohio, Voinovich.

Everyone of these Senators should be replaced. I'm extremely livid over Specter, who I railed against being made head of the Judiciary Commitee to Bill Frist. And ever since, he's done absolutely nothing to change my opinion.

This Illegal Alien issue needs to be readdressed and marketed in a different way by the Right. Sanity102 has put forward this idea at Outside the Box, and I agree. The current perspective is Lose/Lose for the Right. But it's not mean spirited and heartless to want to protect women and children from assault by Illegal Alien rapists, muggers and murderous gang member who easily come across the border and stay in our society preying on the weak and defenseless. This is an idea most Americans can agree on. Most Legal Immigrants support this.

I've called Congressman Boehner's office to point out the need for a new perspective on this issue. 1-800-828-0498.

Brian Ross and ABC have crossed the line to stand with the NY Times as enemies of the State. And now they will have the blood of Iranians on their hands as well, by thwarting our only chance for covert solutions to the Iranian problem.

I thought Liberals were against armed conflict?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/blog_coverage/

The Immigration debate has diverted attention from the little news conference yesterday in which Nancy Pelosi lead a gang of Democrats in the chant, "we really didn't lose, LA LA LA LA". Then explained that even though they've given in to President Bush, "this isn't over".

Let me cut through the haze of BS. Democrats lost, Bush won. I repeat, Bush won. The troops will be funded until September, and the Democrats can't defeat Bush's veto pen over their pork and surrender bill.

Somebody had to say it. (thanks Neil Boortz).

The money for the already approved 700 some mile fence along our Mexican border has already been set aside. So why have only ELEVEN miles of only the first of a double fence been completed so far? And why now is congress trying to cut that in half? This would not even cover the main smuggling routes in Arizona and New Mexico.

Duncan Hunter made these points today on the Sean Hannity show in a pointed condemnation of the New Immigration Deal. Hunter believes this bill will do absolutely NOTHING to stop border incursions. And the tidal wave of workers would dilute jobs and lower the wages of current skilled and construction workers.

So, why are some in the GOP, and especially John McCain, all fired up to pass this apparently bad bill, that pleases no one?

Dick Morris believes that it's the last chance to save the Republican Party.

If the Republican Party passes this bill while a GOP president can still sign it and take partisan credit for it, they will have a very good chance of winning the Latino vote in the future. If not, they will be ground under the demographic changes in America just as the Labor Party was in the early years of the 20th century.

I don't necessarily agree with Dick, but I can see his reasoning here. But I don't see the guarantee of those votes, and I do see the guarantee of an open border and a huge stress on the entitlement system. Tax increases anyone?

This is about the destruction of the GOP, one way or another. If the Liberals can win the votes of the millions flooding in here for the incredible entitlement system that the Left offers, Conservatism will be doomed, and welcome the the Socialist States of North America.

As Rush put it so well:

This is specifically about tearing down institution by institution this country and remaking the country in a liberal image, a socialist state, whatever you want to call it, big government, brand-new entitlements and so forth, big tax increases to support it. Redistribution of wealth. Look, that's a central element to this. You're going to have these illegals proclaimed legal, but their financial status isn't going to change that much. Still going to make what they make, but they're not going to make enough to support themselves in all of their needs, certainly not their wants. But we will. Because the courts have ruled, they are entitled to health care, they're entitled to education, they're entitled to all these things, and guess who's going to pay to make up the difference of what they can't afford and what they're going to get? You and I.

That is a good reason to reject this bill.  To not pass Immigration Reform may cost the GOP in the long run.

As Morris noted:

If they stop it from going through and a Democratic President pushes it through a Democratic
Congress in 2009, the GOP will suffer as much among Hispanic voters as it did among black voters after Barry Goldwater crusaded against the Civil Rights Bill in his 1964 election campaign. Until Goldwater did that, blacks usually voted Republican. Kennedy won over about 60% of them when he called Correta Scott King while her husband was in jail. But LBJ got the 90% of the black vote that has since become his party’s expected share as a direct result of Goldwater’s campaign.

There are many angles to consider. The next GOP debate will be a doozy.

UPDATE: THANKS TO PASADENA PHIL, I'VE BEEN MADE AWARE OF THIS FROM THE DAILY MAIL:

France's minister of immigration and national identity, a new ministry created by President Nicolas Sarkozy, has ruled out legalizing undocumented immigrants en masse.

The new ministry said today that government policy would be dictated by firmness and pragmatism.

"We have to put aside massive legalization. It doesn't work and it penalizes, even immigrants," Brice Hortefeux said on Europe 1 radio.

Policy, he said, would be guided by "firmness and humanism" with "lots of pragmatism."

John McCain, Ted Kennedy & George Bush have pushed Immigration Reform into our living rooms and dens as the Mainstream Media and the New Media are all abuzz over the push to craft a compromise bill. Both the Left and the Right are steaming over the bi-partisan effort to accomplish some sort of agreement over how to deal with the millions of Illegal Aliens that have invaded the United States.

The actual language of the bill, which will determine exactly what is done and how, has NOT yet been finalized. Yet both sides are almost apoplectic over possible scenarios. These are being discussed relentlessly over the internet and the airways to the point of overkill. And Nancy Pelosi is saying she won't even send the bill to the House unless she's guaranteed 1/3 of the GOP votes UP FRONT.

But the other issue here, is how this plays to the GREAT DUMBED DOWN MODERATE MIDDLE. The sleepers. Those who have no philosophy or beliefs political. Those who don't even know there is a fuss going on.

The Progressives and the Enemedia could be laying a huge Bear Trap here for the Right. The MSM will use it's megaphone to make sure when the Sleepers awake for a bite to eat, they hear a relentless drone about how the "cold hearted mean spirited Conservative Theocrats want to deport all these wonderful families that do the jobs Americans won't."

They'll hear stories about how mothers get arrested and deported while their children are at school. They'll hear about how the price of groceries will skyrocket without the workers being kicked out. They're going to be told about the wonderful character of these people the Republicans HATE.

It adds up to, Republicans HATE Hispanics, HATE women who may need an abortion, and HATE anybody who disagrees with their right to own machine guns. Of course this is all hyperbole, and untrue. But it's politics, and propaganda designed to sway the votes of the majority - the great dumbed down moderate sleeping middle.

Would it cost the Right the 2008 election? Would it eventually lead to the complete collapse of the War Against Islamic Fascists? The right doesn't have the ear of the Middle the way the Left does. We need to consider the propaganda war, and be smarter than the Left.  We need to win in 2008 or it could be disaster.

Give up on Immigration Reform and Border Security? NEVER. Just be smart in how we approach the dialogue. It's in the tone and approach. We're being monitored by the Enemedia which is still formulating it's plan to defeat us in 2008.

I'd like the Big Guys in Blogdom to approach this issue. How do we succeed in fighting for our issues without giving our domestic enemies the ammunition and leverage they need to sway the Middle over to their side?

There's a multitude of opinion on the net about the new bill. Some Conservatives are saying it's the best we will get. And McCain is gleeful to have been able once again to "reach across the aisle" and kiss Ted Kennedy's posterior. but the proof is in the pudding. And what would really happen if the bill is enacted is still a mystery.

The simple turning of a phrase can make all the difference.
Big Lizards pointed out that although the bill says:

Border security. The following provisions must be "implemented" before either regularization of illegal aliens or enactment of the temporary-worker program can occur:

1. 370 miles of additional border fence (unknown whether that means actual wall the whole way, wall plus fence, or wall plus fence plus virtual fence);
2. 18,000 additional Border Patrol agents;
3. "Effective, electronic employee-verification system for the workplace;"
4. Crackdown on employers who hire illegals;

I don't know if "implemented" means completed, begun, funded, or what; presumably, this will be hashed out during the actual Senate debate [all from WaPo -- the Washington Post article];
 

And notes that people are:

skeptical that the federal government can actually enforce the border-security provisions and actually make the guest workers go home after two years... but they have no doubt of the government's ability to regularize current illegals.

The main point about the bill for me, is the border enforcement. This Democratic congress has no credibility when it comes to National Security or Law Enforcement. So my guess is they'll find a way to neutralize the enforcement portiions.
Big Lizards points out that:

critical to national security is securing the border with some combination of wall, fence, and virtual fence, in order to keep out the next 12 million potential illegal aliens.

Duncan Hunter tells anyone who'll listen that a fence in San Diego stopped more than 90% of the illegals.

That's my line in the sand. If we can spend billions on entitlements, we can fund a fence from the Gulf to the Pacific.

UPDATE: RICH LOWREY'S PIECE ON TH CONTAINS:

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., noted at the second Republican presidential debate that the Department of Homeland Security has $1 billion for the fence, but "they want to drag their feet and hook this up with amnesty." Give him points for clairvoyance. The sweetener luring some conservative Republicans into the Senate deal is that it would have enforcement benchmarks that would have to be met in theory before other provisions kick in.

The benchmarks include 370 miles of fencing on the border (half what was in the Secure Fence Act) and the hiring of thousands more border agents. If these things happen, however, it still might be that more illegals come here, pulled by the allure of amnesty. The only meaningful benchmarks would be reductions in the number of border crossings and the size of the illegal population already here.

I'm still waiting to hear us all go, wait a minute. But I'm running out of breath, so I'll just say it.

Our Media and our Culture are either missing the point through ignorance or because we've become so desensitized that we can't see the real offense in the incident on the Opie & Anthony Show.

Breitbart      McLEAN, Va. (AP) - XM Satellite Radio suspended shock jocks Opie and Anthony for 30 days Tuesday, one week after they aired crude sex comments about Condoleezza Rice....Opie and Anthony laughed as they imagined Rice's "horror" while describing a violent sexual encounter in which Rice is punched in the face.

From the AP

Reuters - remarks by a guest who said he fantasized about sex with U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

There are way too many of us who share the disturbing opinion that RAPE is sex. I'm not one of them, and I'm highly offended and disturbed that we aren't seeing this for what it is.

Newsbusters - It's not about the shock jocks: all they care about is shock.
It's about the left demonstrating another double standard. If a Rush
Limbaugh made this kind of very objectionable remark about Maxine Waters,
how many leftists would break an ankle running to the public square?

To those who want this to be about FREE SPEECH, put your mother's name in the dialogue in place of Condaleeza Rices'.

At least Captain's Quarters got it:

And this is not a free-speech issue.

But best of all, Neil Boortz @ the Church of the Painful Truth said it clearly:

Charlie begins to discuss having sex with Condi Rice. In fact,
what he was talking about was raping the Secretary of State.

What is wrong with us when we begin to view rape as some kind of sex, kinky or otherwise?

An El Nino of propaganda has blasted across the American propelled by Time Magazine today. Al Gore has scored 10 from the judges for his gymnastic routine, subverting logic and twisting reason to support his half baked and dangerous views on how "we should live".

In the excerpts from The Assault on Reason, Gore has used his undefendable positions as facts that he can't understand why we just won't accept as givens.

We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science.

Al, it has been shown to me many, many times that you are manipulating information and disregarding any facts that disagree with your agenda.

Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the rule of reason.

This has actually made me laugh. There is no use of reason whatsoever in the arguments to dismantle our economy, tax our middle class out of existence, open our borders to flood our population with refugees, emasculate our military and coddle criminals in the name of moral relativity. Those are the pillars of Al Gore's Progressive Ideology.

CBS told MoveOn that "issue advocacy" was not permissible.

Al can't understand why a George Soros funded anti capitalistic, communistic group of raving, hating lunatics shouldn't share the same stage as the Chief Executive of the United States? Oh yeah, Al thinks HE'S the President.

For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake.

The nail in the coffin. Of course, most of the people reading this know the invasion of Iraq WAS necessary. And as much a moral obligation as any other attempt by the Democrats (Kosovo) to free people from evil and tyranny. But that's not the reason. There WERE WMDs in Iraq, Saddam would have used them or given them to Al Queda to use on us, and Saddam was establishing camps to train our enemies.

Talk about a lack of reason, Al Gore is leading the  Left, and the easily manipulated down the path of madness, that will embrace every absurd theory arising from the financial contributions of the Soros groups, such as WE PLANNED 9/11 OURSELVES.

Al Gore is mad. He needs psychiatric therapy. He needs to let 2000 go and get on with his life.

The GOP debate on Fox threw a huge spotlight on how inept, biased and bush league (love this application of the term) MSNBC and Chris Mathews were. NO MORE DEBATES ON MSNBC! The Fox crew was excellent, and professional, and no wonder the Democrats are scared of being shown to the country for who the really are.

Ron Paul gave Rudy Giuliani an incredible boost, and the biggest sound bite of the night, when he said bombing Iraq during the no-fly zone incursions caused 9/11.

I agree with Rudy, that's absurd. And so are the Americans who blame America.

It enabled Rudy to deflect criticism of his socially liberal positions and redirect attention to the fact that we are still at war, and if we don't have a fighter, we're going have a lot of citizens killed. No small feat considering the relentless media attacks on Rudy by people who actually share some of his views.

Hunter and Huckabee both sounded great, and I love their messages. I'm sadly thinking they are fighting a losing battle. That's a shame, I wish I was hearing about the Fair Tax and the Chinese Threat from the front runners.

McCain came off better, but has disqualified himself over his insistence on reaching across the aisle to hold hands with Ted Kennedy and others. He is wrong, I don't want him to compromise our values to "get things done". Sorry John, and if there's a nuke ready to go off in Cincinnati, you'd better be ready to torture somebody to stop it. What did you say, they'll do it to us? THEY'RE CUTTING HEADS OFF JOHN!

Romney didn't do nearly as well this time, seems too canned, and his record is being made to appear "opportunistic."

Tom Tancredo scored with me, again, sadly, he doesn't have a chance.

So what about the big shadows looming off stage? June brings Thompson, September brings Newt. That's a lot of time to either lock up peoples opinions or blow up a campaign. Let's enjoy it.

For all their amorally superior judgements of the Right, there is, as Thomas Sowell has pointed out, a basic fact about the Progressive Liberals in America, that sets them apart from the rest of us. THEY are the angry ones who'd storm the castle with torches and pitchforks. They are the ones howling in the night in righteous indignation over any attempt to prevent a woman from killing a baby. They are the ones who don't have to explain their views using reason and ideas.

As Sowell put it:

Their greatest anger seems to be directed at people and things that thwart or undermine the social vision of the left, the political melodrama starring the left as saviors of the poor, the environment, and other busybody tasks that they have taken on.

It seems to be the threat to their egos that they hate. And nothing is more of a threat to their desire to run other people's lives than the free market and its defenders.

Dualism is a fact of existence. One of the main themes of dualism in our history has been that of Classicism vs. Romanticism. The Liberals are the Romantics, living on feelings, emotions, and lacking any real clarity of reason and thought. And driving this emotion, is the ego which tolerates no judgement of it's actions. No allowance for personal responsibility. And this ego will do gymnastic flips and spins to fool the intellect into believing it's authority.

A common example: "Bush lied, it's all about oil." "How do you know, what evidence do you have?" "I just do."

More dangerous is that the Moderate Middle is indignant in it's ignorance, lazily ineffective in it's citizenship, and dangerously susceptible to the propaganda of the Left spewed by it's MSM accomplices.

But the truth is hidden among the Left's Romantic attachment to Communist Philosophy, hiding among the echoes of the good old days of 60's radicalism, the righteous  struggle that gained victory for General Giap.

Remember him?

As noted here earlier, the Democrats are planning on silencing the free speech of conservative America, effectively doing exactly what they accuse the Right of doing. Attacking and destroying our rights.

All in the name of power, just like the denial doctrine towards the Islamic Fascist Killers.
The American Spectator noted:

"First, [Democrats] failed on the radio airwaves with Air America, no one wanted to listen," says a senior adviser to Pelosi. "Conservative radio is a huge threat and political advantage for Republicans and we have had to find a way to limit it. Second, it looks like the Republicans are going to have someone in the presidential race who has access to media in ways our folks don't want, so we want to make sure the GOP has no advantages going into 2008."

This is filthy dirty politics, beyond the pale of history. The survival of our nation at risk, and the Democratic party wants to win at any cost. How many people can you name who've been harmed by the Patriot Act?

Write your Congress persons and Senators, the Fairness Doctrine must be stopped.

As previously noted here, Dem Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio thinks Iraq is nothing more than a civil war. And we should bring the troops home to fight terrorism HERE. Amazing isn't it. And this is the current talking point from the Democratic party, echoed in the Enemedia. Think it will work?

In Sunday's Cincinnati Enquirer, the paper printed a "comment" from a reader echoing the same talking point.

What's going on there now is not our war, but the Iraqis' civil and religious war. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen are not truly the targets of the civil warriors but, instead, are collateral damage in that war. If our personnel were the targets we'd be suffering as many casualties as have the Iraqis, hundreds daily.

My response to Sen. Brown and the Enquirer go unanswered. They fail to acknowledge the facts from the General they approved who is managing the conflict in Iraq. Gen Petraeus consistently say, it's Al-Queda in Iraq trying to instigate civil war, pure and simple.

From LGF:

A RADICAL plan by Al-Qaeda to take over the Sunni heartland of Iraq and turn it into a militant Islamic state once American troops have withdrawn is causing alarm among US intelligence officials.

A power struggle has emerged between the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, an organisation with ambitions to become a state which has been set up by Al-Qaeda, and more moderate Sunni groups. They are battling for the long-term control of central and western areas which they believe could break away from Kurdish and Shi’ite-dominated provinces once the coalition forces depart.

According to an analysis compiled by US intelligence agencies, the Islamic State has ambitions to create a terrorist enclave in the Iraqi provinces of Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala, Salah al-Din, Nineveh and parts of Babil.

We retreat from Iraq, we're retreating from Al-Queda. And then what will they do? That's the question I'd like to hear answered by the Democratic nominees, the editors of the NY Times, and all the Dumbed Down Moderate Middle Independents who are mouthing democratic talking points.

I heard Newt Gingrich make a fascinating analysis on the Sean Hannity show Thursday, regarding the successful election of Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy in France. Sarkozy has startled the West by defeating an attractive Socialist opponent in the country many Americans see as the shining example of Failed Liberalism.

Newt pointed out that he thought Sarkozy was able to succeed because, he campaigned on a program of change, of doing things differently, discarding the past and moving forward with optimism. This was in stark contrast to the Socialist opponent's campaign.

And the point is, unless the GOP campaigns on a similar program of positive change, in social, economic (tax reform) and national security ( including Illegal Aliens) issues, they will lose in 2008. Defending the status quo won't get it. Americans are hungry for something better. The Democrats will make false and empty promises that will seem attractive to the Dumbed Down Moderate Middle. The Dems agenda is stalled, nothing is being achieved and the time is ripe for the GOP to step up and lead. But so far, it seems I'm just hearing the top three defend the way things are.

If we win the war in Iraq, and I believe we can, then what? Will the GOP be prepared to lead us into the future?