The American Spectator

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F. D. Roosevelt was of the same mind -- he pushed for early and aggressive action against Germany and Japan and when the British demurred, he and General George C. Marshall played the ultimate card they had -- they threatened the British with moving American forces to the Pacific if they could not fight in Europe. The English wet their pants from one end of the country to the other over that threat -- it was deadly. Roosevelt and Marshall were the last of the breed -- leaders who knew that in war, there is no prize for coming second. Winning is the only thing that counts and nobody prosecutes a victor.

A war will not save the Obama administration because the man does not know how to fight, let alone how to win a war. Harry Truman did not benefit from the Korean War, Vietnam did not benefit LBJ and George W. Bush did not benefit from Iraq and Afghanistan. None of them could show the public that they were winning and the public turned against them in the end -- and so they should. The Duke of Wellington spoke for a lot of people when he saw the carnage at the end of the Battle of Waterloo and said "the only thing worse than seeing a battle won is seeing a battle lost." If Obama does have to fight a war then the most likely outcome is that he will lose and lose badly -- he is too incompetent and too gutless to win a war, he knows nothing about leadership or responsibility. Personally, I think the chance of America having to fight a war increase the longer Obama is in office, his weakness and incompetence simply invites an adversary to try their luck and to over reach and miscalculate. Saddam Hussein did exactly that in 1990 -- he thought he could get away with invading Kuwait and he nearly did, because the first instinct of President George H. W. Bush was to fold and it was Margaret Thatcher who told him to stand firm. Where is the next Margaret Thatcher?

Obama's weaknesses will probably lead to the very same type of confrontation he wants to avoid, and when it happens, it will destroy him and everything he stands for. His professorial mates at Harvard should do him a big favour and tell him that only the victors get to write history -- the losers end up as footnotes. I give short odds that Obama will end up as a footnote. I don't think you need to be much of a betting man to work out the odds on this one.
-- Christopher Holland
Canberra, Australia

Anti-union violence during the Truman years? I can't think of any such instances in the Truman or Eisenhower years. This sounds like Tip O'Neil claiming to have seen NINA (No Irsh Need Apply) signs in Boston when he was a boy, long after the last one had been documented as being taken down.
-- David Bartlett

PUT OFF
Re: Matthew Vadum's Greenwashing 9/11:

9/11 "Republican" because of so-called issues such as patriotism, national security and the ongoing War on Terror?

What an execrable suggestion!

Of course, only Marxist-raised and tutored Barack Hussein Obama and his extra-legislative-appointee Van Jones, yet another Marxist, as well as their coterie of liberals and leftists, would be so arrogant and ignorant to say that or allow such anti-American rubbish to come out of the White House.

But there's reason to be thankful for their arrogance and ignorance.

Motivated by their rage with America, they confess what the rest of us have known for a long time: the Democrats and liberals, including their leftist allies, cannot be entrusted with national security and that the word "patriotism" scares and apparently repulses them.

It sickens me how the White House appears to be turning red -- and how very little connection the president and his administration and, generally, liberals, have with America.

It amuses, too, to see that they do not understand that they also cannot brand 9/12 in their image. Since 9/11, one of the most outstanding differences between them and the rest of America is that they appear stuck on 9/10/2001 and work feverishly to return America to those days.

What lunkheads.
-- C. Kenna Amos Jr.
Princeton , West Virginia

ROUGH WRITER
Re: Jeff Lord's Is Sarah Palin the Next Ted Kennedy?

TR, Jr. did not "fizzle," as you put it. He was a state senator, assistant secretary of the Navy, and a nominee for governor of New York. He was a brigadier general during World War 2, and won the Congressional Medal of Honor. One of his commanding generals once commented, "His father was a professional politician and an amatuer soldier. We are lucky his son was the other way around."
-- Michael Skaggs
Murray, Kentucky