While he's no friend of Mr. Bush's war in Iraq, Pat Buchanan takes one look at the Democrasses and shudders.

All my life, said Voltaire, "I have never made but one prayer ... 'Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."

(To prevent this post from degenerating into a dismemberment of ol' Voltaire, I'll let that pass.)

George Bush must have been praying the same way lately.

In his "Plan for Victory" address to the Naval Academy, the president declared: "Against this adversary, there is only one effective response: We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory."

This is what one expects of a commander in chief in wartime, speaking to the patriotic young midshipmen, who roared approval.

The alternative?

To which Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean instantly retorted, "The idea that we're going to win this war ... is just plain wrong."

Gee, Pat, what does Senator War Criminal think?

Sunday on "Face the Nation," John Kerry said to Bob Schieffer: "There is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking ... the historical customs, religious customs ... Iraqis should be doing that."

How about a distaff opinion?

After Bush went before the Council of Foreign Relations to report some progress in the war, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi headed for the cameras to sneer: "Just because he says things are improving doesn't make it so ... The president says the security situation on the ground is better. It is not."

How's that for a morale booster?

She's so cute. Like a serial killer with power.

Rep. Jack Murtha added, "Bush's plan is to stay the course and hope."

But, surely, hope is superior to this remorseless despair and defeatism oozing out of the Democratic Party. One wonders what Jack Murtha's old Marine buddies think when they hear him – day in, day out – wail that all is lost and the U.S. Army is "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth."

Oh, yeah. How could I forget Pennsylvania's best and brightest, "The Johnstown Crud" himself?

And here's Mr. Buchanan's bottom line on the defeatist, dysfunctional, and dimwitted Democrasses:

"They have a right to criticize who have a heart to help," said Lincoln. Listening to Democrats, it is hard to discern any of the later, outside of Sen. Joe Lieberman. Whatever one thinks of the war, the party is revealing itself to be so steeped in pessimism that it is unfit to lead the nation. Who could vote for such a party?

Democrats are again courting a perception that they are not really a loyal opposition at all, but a party of defeat and retreat, whose worst nightmare would be to see George Bush emerge as a victorious president in a war they said we could not win. This is precisely the perception Democrats created in the last days of Vietnam – and they paid a hellish price for it.
(Thanks to WND for the heads up.)