Free kibbles

Lebanon is in another phase of perpetual crisis.

Christopher Preble fails to mention the costs of leaving Iraq early. The anti-war crowd doesn't want to address that issue because it destroys their position.

Steven Slivinsky thinks gridlock will be good for the economy. Unfortunately Bush is as liberal as most of the Democrats, so we may not see gridlock. Bush has already said he'll sign a minimum wage increase despite it being a job killer and a driver of illegal immigration.

Another brutal dictator is about to bite the dust.

The Russians and the Chinese flank their proxy in the Cold War on Terror.

Democrats say four of Bush's judicial nominees are dead. I'm not so sure. Democrats have the majority, so every one of Bush's nominees should get a vote. Assuming the nominees have the credentials, and given that many new Democrats are conservative or moderate, and Chafee was defeated, I think Bush's nominations are more likely to win confirmation. It will depend on how the much the new Senators defer to the Democratic leadership. This article speaks of conservative judges, but I hope they mean originalists. I don't want activist conservative judges any more than I want activist liberal judges.

Mark Steyn explains the terrorists strategy. Republicans aren't much better at defeating our enemies than Democrats. Bush's war with no path to victory in Iraq, where our troops are not allowed to destroy our enemies no matter how many times they get al Sadr an others in their sites, is no better than LBJ's timid approach in Vietnam. We can't defeat our enemies by allowing them to survive to fight over and over. We need small government and muscular foreign policy. Right on all count.

Republicans ignore the impact of corruption on the election at their peril. It's hard to understand how corrupt Democrats get a pass, but not corrupt Republicans. It's the voter base, stupid.

Ruben Navarrette explains the effect of the illegal immigration issue on the election. Short sightedness is going to turn America into a third world country. Because we granted amnesty to gate-crashers in the '80s and failed to shut the floodgates, we have 12-20 million illegal aliens in this country today. If we reward them with citizenship, in 25 years we'll have another 60 million, and it will be too late to save the country. We have to stop the southern invasion now.

Michael Goodwin says the mommy party is on the rise. He also calls the Bush administration macho men. Bush has outsourced our foreign policy to the anti-American U.N. - he has to ask their permission before he takes a dump. He won't let our troops win the wars he started because he doesn't want to make our enemies mad; he let the French, Germans, and U.N. get away scott free with their oil for food corruption; he's allowed North Korea and Iran to ignore us and the world with no penalty; and he's afraid of confronting China and Russia, the masters of those rogue nations, while they conduct an all out war of subterfuge against us. That's what liberals call macho foreign policy. Bush's anemic, ineffective foreign policy has cost us all credibility in the world. Compare this with the overwhelming success of the Reagan administration to see just how stupid it is. This is the destructive result of men's testosterone levels dropping in America. Michael Goodwin's must be way lower than most. It is important to note that the American people were firmly on Bush's side when it appeared he was being macho. It was only after he proved to be so wimpy that America stopped supporting him.

Jacob Sullum illustrates Republicans' excesses using the horse meat ban. I love horses too, but this isn't the government's business.