In a recent Washington Post poll, only 21 percent of Americans identified themselves as Republicans. Overwhelming Democrat majorities in Congress marginalize Republicans in government. Still, Democrats continue to run against the last Republican administration as they attempt to rush transformational legislation through Congress, worrying about Republican gains in the 2010 election.

At the same time, President Barack Obama has declared all-out war on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the health insurance industry.

Democrats in and out of government attack and ridicule the "tea-party" movement as the left-wing blogosphere and entertainment communities attack conservative Sarah Palin as if she already were running against Barack Obama in the 2012 election.

Conservatives, however, spend almost as much time criticizing Republicans as they do Democrats. In the race for the vacant seat in the 23rd District of New York, national Republican politicians are supporting the Conservative Party candidate over the Republican.

What's going on here, and who is really running against whom?

Read my column at http://ewross.com/Democrats_vs_Republicans_vs_Conservatives.htm

The Democrat’s second attempt to nationalize healthcare in the United States is on life support. The patient’s vital signs are weak, and the death panel is about to pull the plug.

Things haven’t been going well for President Obama lately. Conservative columnists, talk-show hosts, and bloggers are having a field day chronicling the president's fall from the clouds above Mount Olympus. His poll numbers, if not his ambition, have returned to Earth as he has failed to effectively sell his healthcare plan, insinuated a cop was a racist before he had the facts, and delegated too much responsibility to fragmented Democrats in Congress. With Obama's presidency and the Democratic agenda on the line, members of Congress return home in August to meet with their constituents. They'll encounter groups of voters who aren't happy with what Democrats have been doing. It’s America’s growing discontent that’s the real news story this summer. Expect an all out effort by liberals in the media and entertainment to ridicule the voices of opposition.

Why is Camille Paglia just about the only liberal feminist who ever has anything good to say about Sarah Palin. While liberal-feminist journalists like Maureen Dowd regularly ravage Sarah Palin in her New York Times column, Paglia has spoken admiringly of Palin while often critical of Palin’s policy views on which they disagree.

A good example of Dowd’s opinion of Palin is Down’s July 8 column which mocks Palin with a fictitious diary entry. “No one understands me. It’s like I’m speaking some Eskimo dialect or something. Andrea Mitchell follows me all the way to Kanakanak Beach and I get a French manicure and set up this huge photo op for her, even though she spooked the salmon.”

Paglia cuts to the chase. “Whether Palin has a national future or not will depend on her willingness to hit the books at some point and absorb more information about international history and politics than she has needed to know in her role as governor. She also needs a shrewder, cooler take on the mainstream media, with its preening bullies, cackling witches, twisted cynics and pompous windbags.” I wonder if Dowd was the cackling witch Paglia was referring to?

At any rate, if Camille Paglia finds something to admire and respect in Sarah Palin, then the soon to be ex-governor of Alaska can’t be a total dunce. Perhaps what Paglia sees in Palin is what so many other people who like Palin see in her. She, like Paglia, believes what she believes not because that’s what other people expect her to believe or because that’s what you have to believe to called a liberal or a conservative but because she came to her conclusions using her own intellect. That’s what the horde of liberal feminists don’t like about dissident-feminist Paglia, and that’s what they don’t like about Palin.

Two events dominate the news this week, Sarah Palin’s resignation and the continuing coverage of Michael Jackson’s death and funeral service. Both are newsworthy events that, unfortunately, commentators, entertainers, and pundits will talk about ad infinitum. Two other events this week will receive only scant attention in the media. One is the death Monday of former defense secretary and architect of the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara. The other is the commemoration Wednesday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial of the 50th anniversary of the first American combat casualties in the Vietnam War. US Army Master Sgt. Chester Ovnand and MAJ Dale Buis died on July 8, 1959, when their compound was attacked by North Vietnamese communists. Theirs are the first two names on the Wall. These latter two events may not warrant the news coverage Palin and Jackson receive, but they are worth noting. They mark the beginning, and perhaps the end, of a 50-year American Odyssey that was far more controversial than either Palin or Jackson. For Vietnam War combat veterans like myself, Ovnand, Buis, and McNamara’s deaths give us pause to reflect. Sometime this week, whether you’re watching someone pontificate about Palin, eulogize about Jackson, or something altogether different, take a moment to think about the 58,000 men and women whose names are inscribed on the Wall. It will help you put things in perspective. 

Palin is certainly fair game for political humor as is any politician; even if a good bit of that humor is deliberately intended damage her image. That’s nothing new. When a comedian does what David Letterman did Monday night, however, he crosses the line. Referring to Palin’s “slutty flight attendant look” and saying her daughter was “knocked up by Alex Rodriguez” at a Yankee’s game weren’t intended to be humorous at Palin and her daughter’s expense, they were intended to demean and degrade them.

If John McCain loses the 2008 presidential election, and nine days from Election Day I do not believe it is a foregone conclusion that he will, McCain will not be blameless. To argue, however, that it’s all about his campaign, or the global financial crisis, or George Bush ignores the giant donkey in the room.