Sleepwalking

Appearing in the Washington, D.C. Examiner over the weekend:

Editorial: Sleepwalking into the gathering storm?
The Washington DC Examiner Newspaper, The Examiner
Nov. 6, 2006

WASHINGTON - “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” — Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, May 13, 1940

Midterm elections are when voters decide whether they made the right choices last time. And except for 1994, when Newt Gingrich led Republicans to their present majority status, voters have been largely satisfied. Since WWII, the average midterm gain in the House of Representatives has been just 25 seats.

But something feels different this time. In the most expensive mid-term election in U.S. history, leading national Democrats are conspicuous by their silence on the defining issue of our era: the war on terrorism. Instead of laying out their plans in detail for voters to assess, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have in recent weeks stepped back into the shadows and watched as President Bush has endured blow after blow from the mainstream media and other precincts of America’s almost-uniformly liberal and Democrat elites. When they should be proclaiming at least one great idea, these critics offer only a corrosive “Blame America, Blame Bush” litany of bitterness.

The result is Americans know too little of what Democrats will do should Tuesday’s voting return them to majority status in either or both chambers of Congress. In making Bush the focus of the campaign, however, Reid, Pelosi and company still cannot avoid this stark fact: America is under attack here at home and abroad by Islamic facists who killed thousands of us on Sept. 11 and who intend the deaths of millions more of us in the future.

This is indeed another time for choosing. Embattled Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said it well in a recent speech. “The war is at our doorsteps and it is fueled, figuratively and literally, by Islamic fascism nurtured and bred in Iran, “ Santorum warned. “… Many Americans are sleepwalking, just as they did before the world wars of the last century. They pretend it is not happening, that it all has to do with the errors of a single American administration, even of a single American president. … It’s time to wake up.”

If Santorum is right, the United States teeters on the brink of a war with 52,000 suicide terrorists currently being trained in Iran, hostile regimes in both Asia and the Middle East moving steadily to secure nuclear weapons, and a million-man army being assembled by a belligerent South American dictator. We have to wake up.

It is true that, despite a booming economy for which they get curiously little credit, Bush and the Republican majority in Congress have often been a disappointment. Massive deficits and secretive earmarks have made a mockery of the GOP’s traditional claim to fiscal austerity. Add congressional ethics scandals, the administration’s mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, and its failure to control the nation’s borders during its six years in power and it’s no wonder that many voters are confused, discouraged and in the mood to deliver a stinging rebuke at the polls.

But we must remember that, as America faces a mortal threat, too many Democrats who would lead us have not yet demonstrated that they recognize our peril. We know only that they have urged withdrawal from Iraq, but are always vague about what happens after that. And they have consistently opposed every means of intelligence-gathering that has clearly prevented new terrorist attacks and thus saved countless lives.

Despite Bush’s missteps and his low approval ratings, Iraq remains a crucial battlefield in a worldwide struggle between America with its democratic values and Islamic Fascism. Only one side can win. Are Americans willing to commit to “victory at all costs,” as Churchill urged his fellow Britons in their epic struggle, or will we join the Democrats who ignore the gathering storm clouds ahead?