Free Republic

<p>IN THE past fortnight, the Democrats have come up with lots of comfort-food explanations of George Bush's victory&#8212;from the idea that the rascal stole the election for a second time (there were a mere 3.3m votes in it, after all) to the notion that he rode into Washington, DC, at the head of an army of hooded fundamentalists. But perhaps the most dangerous of all these myths is the idea that Mr Bush terrified the voters into re-electing him. He divided the country along &#8220;fault lines of fear&#8221;, according to Maureen Dowd in the New York Times; he relied on &#8220;fear of and hatred for modernity&#8221;, added Garry Wills, polymath and devout Catholic. Sooner or later every Democrat starts saying that the president used terrorism to partisan advantage.</p>

When 'what if' is no game Frank Gaffney | A recent book by prominent military historians has mainstreamed "alternative history" -- a field that has heretofore been principally a passion for war-reenactors and others fascinated by what might have happened if, at critical moments, things had worked out differently. The New York Times best-selling "What If" features essays by the likes of John Keegan, Stephen Ambrose, David McCullough and Arthur Waldron that consider, for example, how differently the course of human history might have been had Alexander the Great not died prematurely, had the Spanish Armada gotten past the English...