Biting my nails with 2 months to go.

Michael Barone writes that renewed awareness of terrorism may improve the GOP's chances this fall. Let's hope so. As annoying as Congress is with Republicans in charge, it could be much worse, because Democrats have become so consumed with Bush hatred that they will spend all their time and energy trying to impeach him, reverse the tax cuts and abandon the Iraqis. No doubt, after two years of that, the Republicans would be back, but the damage they could do is far greater than at any time I can think of in the past 50 years. The worst I can say about the Republicans is that they've overspent, but I don't see anything changing that pattern until we reform or repeal social security. (Defined benefit plans should be outlawed, period. They are little more than Ponzi schemes.) They are undisciplined, making it difficult to accomplish some positivve things that need doing, but we can live with that. What would be disastrous would be to hand the Middle East over to Iran. We're going to have to confront that regime, unless the Iranian people rise up and overthrow it. A success in Iraq would probably encourage the latter outcome, while the former would be made necessary and much more difficult by a retreat.

I wish there were some way to reform our media, but that can only be done by punishing them economically. Advertisers are already moving to online advertising, but not nearly fast enough. The blogosphere is still dependent on the old media, even if it does criticize it liberally. I don't know how long it will take for this liberal bias to change, but it must be soon, because it is the only thing that keeps the liberalism viable.