As I was coming online this morning, Yahoo’s headline asked me “Can Palin quiet media storm?” and they probably asked you the same thing on your way to Townhall. I think you might find me cruel, but my reply was, “Oh, I hope not!”

It’s not that I take any glee in watching the media and the Left pound this woman. In fact, it is the savageness of their attacks that I am focused on. As they continue to rip into Mrs. Palin … have you noticed? … something ever so interesting is happening. Heretofore, the Republicans have been lukewarm about their candidate. Fundraising has been lackluster. This lack of enthusiasm has been the number-one factor that would have / could have put Obama in the White House. I know he can’t win on a straight up election -- self-professed liberals just don’t -- unless the Religious Right stays home or does some sort of Third Party thing. Clinton was the last liberal that got elected to the White House, not by a majority, but by a split vote. In those days running up to the election, no one was really sure he was a liberal anyway. He said he was moderate or progressive or some other label. The only way that I could see where Obama stood a chance of winning in this election was going to be the lack of interest and support from the Right for the Republican candidate. If the Right turned out in really low numbers, it seemed possible (if unlikely) for the Democrats to pull it out.

Then came Sarah Palin. She walked out onto that stage next to John McCain and the whole picture changed. Sarah Palin is real pleasant to look at, isn’t she? She’s a little eye-candy and that never hurt anyone with a public career. The Left, the Democrats and the other usual suspects went wild! They have been howling for blood ever since. They have been vicious and unfair and ugly beyond their own standards. The good news is that the Right has responded, and how they have responded! They have been circling the wagons around Sarah Palin in a major way. Suddenly, the whole “culture wars” thing is renewed with vigor. Even now, I can hear someone shouting “Amen” from the back.

I don’t envy Mrs. Palin the fiery furnace she is going to have to pass through, as the assaults on her keep coming in never-ending waves of rage. These assaults are against cultural values that are shared by her constituency, and the enthusiastic support that has been unleashed is phenomenal. The media attack-dogs are showing themselves for who we have known they are, and no one is making any pretense of unbiased balance. Their downward spiral will only continue.

Meanwhile, the Right-wing of the Republican Party is no longer staring out the window, wondering what they are going to do about their lack of appealing choices in the upcoming Presidential race. They are hot! Anyone listening to those nasty talk radio shows knows that the Defense of Sarah Palin, which is the defense of our traditional American values, has more passion and more vitality than we have seen in the McCain campaign so far.

The net result is amazing. John McCain is free to return to his comfort zone, talking about security and fiscal things. As the Left continues to attack Sarah Palin, they are not using their bully pulpit to gurgle their admiration of Obama. The Religious Right is back in the fray, with a compelling interest in the November election. My compliments and kudos to the campaign strategist who set this up!

There was a headline to an article a few months ago that said that Solitaire was the most popular computer game ever. I wasn’t surprised at the headline, since I think everyone has had a go at it sometime. Employers hate it, understandably. I wouldn’t want to have to pay for such unproductive time, either.

But sometimes, especially in the late evenings, I like to play a few hands to unwind and de-stress. Recently, while playing, it occurred to me that there were some life lessons to learn.

The first lesson: sometimes you lose. I lose more hands than I win. In fact, I can play a perfect game and still lose. I don’t always have to lose because I make a mistake, but I don’t necessarily win just because I made no mistakes. Playing perfectly and flawlessly is not congruent with winning.

The second lesson: sometimes there is nothing to do but start over. No matter how strongly you wish it, there are times that you can’t win and you just need to begin anew. Whining doesn't help.

Lately, I have been mulling over the political correctness of diversity while playing solitaire. The good thing about playing solitaire on the computer, as opposed to the olden days when these processes had to be performed manually, is that there is no “deck of fifty-one” of Statler Brothers’ fame. Everyone who has ever played solitaire knows that you need all the cards in order to win. This alone is a beautiful example of diversity at work. There are situations that require a black six or a red four and, in those circumstances, no matter how much someone may love the Jack of Clubs, the Jack just won’t do.

That’s when I realized what was wrong with the public discourse on diversity in America today. The end game doesn’t really seem to be about finding the right place for each card and having each one play its role. It’s really more like a reverse discrimination, especially against whites, Republicans, males, Christians and Conservatives, and ever so especially if all these things come together. If I need a black nine, but I turn over a red seven, am I prejudiced against all red cards if I fail to play that card anyway? If I say I want a red ten, and then two of them turn up back to back, does that mean I didn’t want the red ten in the first place if I can’t play both? If I turn over the Queen of Diamonds and there is nowhere I can play that card in the game at the moment, does this mean that I don’t like women? Does this mean that I never wanted the Queen of Diamonds and never will?

Why does the national discussion start off talking about “strong women” only to find out that this defense only applies to females of the Democrat persuasion? (Or was that Democrats of the female persuasion?) If I say “not this black man at this time for this particular job,” does that make me a hate-mongering reactionary oppressor? And always will be?

I need all fifty-two cards to win a game of solitaire. But I don’t win every game, even though I play with all fifty-two cards. It depends on the order and the placement. Clearly there is something racist or bigoted or something about these rules. In truth, we just need to rethink the national discussion, but what’s the likelihood of that?

Let us devise a grand social experiment. Let us conspire to hijack an entire nation, an ancient culture of people with a strong national identity, a population in the tens of millions across a land mass in excess of 100,000 square miles. Then, let's destroy the existing infrastructure; from the factories and schools to the roads and bridges, we'll just bomb them out. Once we have accomplished this, we should draw an arbitrary line across the map of this nation -- not along existing land features lest the rainfall might be more on one side of the mountain range than the other. We will just impose an arbitrary dotted line down the middle.

On the one side of this devasted land, we will introduce Communism, unashamed centralized government, no hybrid concessions, no piece-meal patchwork, but a proud, true workers' paradise in the classic Marx and Lenin traditions. On the other side of this arbitrary boundary, we will leave these poor unfortunates to their own devises, with free market forces to prevail on their own.

Then we should leave this cauldron to simmer for a couple of decades and let's see the comparison of Capitalism and Communism, side by side.

But wait - we already did all that. It was called Post-WW2 Germany. Ravaged by the years at war, Germany was brought to her knees and divided between the Allied Powers; with Russia introducing Communism on the East side of the map and the U.S. and Britain establishing Democracy and Capitalism on the West. Roll the calendar forward a few decades and we see West Germany standing among the economic powerhouses of Europe within a few decades, while unemployment and stagnation were still rampant in Eastern Germany.

Attention all college students! Whether it's the History of Western Civilization or a Political Science class, or any other discipline where you may be asked for a comparison of Communism and Capitalism, you do not always have to yield the field to your liberal college professor. Take this "social experiment" concept and rework it into your essay in your blue notebook. Add every characteristic from your class lectures about Capitalism and about Communism, the centralized vs decentralized economies, whatever your professor tossed out. Really make it clear that you were listening to all his glorification of Communism and denigrating Capitalism. Mark down all the fine details within this framework. Then sum it up with the WW2 Germany clincher. If you kept your intentions veiled until your summary, it always brings them up short. But they really can't flunk you because you have made your point, and answered their question, and cited all the proper historic support for your position. And good luck to you!

As everyone may have already heard, there is a non-binding resolution pending in the Congress. This resolution addresses the 1915 supposed Armenian genocide by the Turks. I say 'supposed' because the incident happened nearly one hundred years ago and is something of a cold case. The United States had nothing to do with it then, and has nothing to do with it now. And though I would love to debate the historic facts, that is not what this blog is about. It's about the true meaning of the current resolution.

If the incident is old news and irrelevant to today, why is the Congress doing this now?

I say it is irrelevant to today because the Turkish government is different now than it was then. Then it was a Muslim government and now it is a secular government. This incident has been brought before the Congress several times before. I don't have my fact checker at the ready, so I am going to say that I seem to recall that even Bill Clinton asked Congress not to pass a similar resolution. So why is the Congress doing this now?

Remarkably, no one seems to be able to see that this is an anti-war bill in disguise. The intent of this legislation is to disrupt our supply lines into Iraq. The Democrats know that Turkey is extremely sensitive over this historic issue, and it is the Democrats' desire to open old wounds if it will help us lose the war in Iraq. Turkey has been an ally of ours for many years and a base for many of our Middle East operations. A majority of our war supplies today comes into Iraq through Turkey. 

Apparently, Pelosi & Friends believe that they have found a new tactic to force an end to the war. This isn't about Armenians and Turks, and this isn't about a 100 year old massacre. This is about surrender. They can't get enough popular support to pull funding from the war in a straight-up vote. They can't get enough traction with the left wing anti-war movement to sway public opinion against this war. So they are disguising their moves to persuade enough Democrats in Congress so that they can shut down the war through the back door.

Disrupt the supply lines, and you will disrupt the war effort. If we can't get supplies to the war, we would have to pull our troops out. Best of all, going into the future, the Democrats can blame Turkey for the logistical failure that will have caused the troop withdrawal. The Democrats get what they want -- troop withdrawal -- and get the political cover to shift the blame away from themselves. What could be better?