A problem we face is that we rarely find a great leader who can get elected. The best candidates for president are not likely to be willing to do what they have to do to get elected. This is why we mostly get shallow bozos like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush for our presidents. I believe that Ronald Reagan was an exception to this recurring dilemma. And I don’t believe Fred Thompson is an exception. In fact, there are no exceptions in the 2008 race at this time.
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There is a basic difference between Western countries and countries like Iraq. Western countries want law and order above most all else. We are willing to bend quite a lot to avoid violent confrontations and to preserve our orderly system of government. We prefer to work out our differences through the political or judicial processes. Sure, there are a lot of Iraqis that would prefer law and order. But the problem is that there are too many that don’t.

There was a lot of violence in our past but we managed to reach where we are today in just a few hundred years. The Mesopotamians and other Iraqis have been there for thousands of years and they still can’t coexist peacefully.
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Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, has boasted that the United States was being defeated in Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts. I hope he knows the difference between defeat and cutting losses. Sometimes a cost-benefit analysis indicates that you should give up certain pursuits, but it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t succeed at some cost.

I hope he understands that, even if we pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq, we can still destroy both of them and Iran without breaking a sweat — if we become sufficiently motivated.
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A popular argument against allowing the use of cheap Mexican labor in America is that the taxpayers are paying for their healthcare and other social services.  The biggest problem though is not the use of cheap Mexican labor.  It is the fact that government provided healthcare and other social services exist in the first place.
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For what it’s worth, my favorite columnists are: Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Burt Prelutsky, Jonah Goldberg, Paul Greenberg, David Limbaugh, Debra Saunders and Diana West. I used to like Pat Buchanan but lately he seems to have flipped his lid. You can find all of them at Townhall.com.