BACK TO REALITY

New York Post ^ | 8/02/04 | JOHN PODHORETZ

[kattracks]

August 2, 2004 -- MANY Americans — many New Yorkers — have spent the past year on vacation. Now, with the news yesterday that put America on orange alert (and New York on heightened alert), we've been forced to return from our vacation earlier than we would have liked.

We've taken a trip not in space, but in time: We had traveled back to Sept. 10 and the days and years before the terrorists attacked us.

During our vacation, American political junkies and politically engaged people in the West fell back into the comforting old habit of imagining that the only things that matter are the things American politicians do.

Everyone on the Left — from soft liberals to Michael Moore — seemed to have decided that the problems faced by the United States were primarily or even solely the fault of George W. Bush.

The Right fell to squabbling and niggling about the way in which the War on Terror was being fought.

During their vacation, both Left and Right fell prey to a kind of arrogant American innocence. It was as though both ideological camps essentially came to believe it was within the capacity of the United States to envision every conceivable difficulty we can face.

So the only reason we didn't stop 9/11, or went to war over WMD we haven't found, or faced terrible difficulties in pacifying Iraq and Afghanistan, is that we suffered from a "failure of vision."

Or because our leaders lied.

[Savage Beast]

Unfortunately, the American Left is on permanent vacation from reality. And the Democrat Party is now Left-wing Lunatic Fringe.

Sooner or later, reality comes crashing down to spoil the fun. It sobers some. It drives others deeper into delusion.

One thing's for certain: The last thing America needs--the last thing the world needs--is further empowerment of these psychotic lunatics.

Sober, responsible, clear thinking Americans must flock to the polls to re-elect President Bush!

The fate of the world depends upon it.