No victory in anything has ever been achieved by declaring defeat first. No war, no business endeavor, no athletic competition, no personal achievement, nothing. Therefore, the Democrats’ attempt to send the terrorists a media-gram of when we will withdraw from Iraq makes no sense, except to claim a political victory at the expense of national security.

If all the Democratic leaders in Congress are willing to place a sign on their mailboxes at home that says, “Dear thief, the doors are open and I will be leaving tomorrow for a few days,” then I might believe that they are not putting politics ahead of national security.

Of course the Democrats will deny that their objective is to gain political advantage at any cost, just as they have denied that anything positive has happened while George W. Bush has been president. They have not only openly insulted the president and tried to hijack his authority, they have insulted the intelligence of most of the American people and gotten away with it. They know how uninformed and gullible most people are about what happens in Washington, D.C.

With the help of the Republicans in Congress, the Democrats were able to convince enough voters that we needed a “New Direction” without ever knowing what that new direction would be. In the few short months of their congressional control, we are seeing that their new direction is clearly to go backwards on the war in Iraq and domestic policy.

No one disagrees that mistakes have been made relative to the war, but it has been far from a total loss as Democrats would have the public believe. And now they want the public to believe that “cut and run” or “withdrawal date” or “redeployment” or any sound bite that will make people feel it is not “surrender” to the terrorists is the right thing to do. People might feel relieved of this war for a moment, but how will they feel when Iraq is overrun by terrorist countries in the region? Or how will they feel when the USA is hit with another major terrorist attack, because we will have shown that we can not stomach an ugly war?

Democrats are not happy that the stock market is still going up because tax cuts work. They are not happy that record low unemployment is still down because the overall economy is still vibrant. And they are insulted that a Republican presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, would dare accuse them of wanting to go back to pre-9/11 defense against terrorism, instead of being on ugly offense. And yes, it is ugly offense because this is a different kind of ugly war.

There’s an old saying that if you say something often enough, long enough, and convincingly enough that eventually some people will start to believe it is true, or that it must be inevitable even if it is not true or inevitable.

Even though the president has said he will not sign the perverted war funding bill with a date specific withdrawal from Iraq, the Democratic-controlled House and the Senate went to great lengths to send it to him anyway. That gives the media an opportunity to present the date certain withdrawal date millions of times to the public, without ever mentioning the future ramifications of such a politically motivated proposal.

It is no accident that the Democrats and the media do not report what the soldiers and the military field commanders believe is the real status of the war, the real status of progress in Iraq and the absolute stupidity of telling the enemy when we will leave. That perspective would not help their political cause.

The Democrats are making progress with the announced withdrawal date idea with the help of the media, just as they were able to convince enough consumers that high gasoline prices are caused by the president and greedy oil companies, instead of world supply and demand.

Never mind that governmental regulatory barriers have helped to increase our dependence on foreign oil over the last 25 years. Democrats have taken advantage of enough people with no economic literacy to support their proposals to pass more regulations and taxes on the evil oil companies.

Never mind that an amnesty program for illegal aliens will put unbearable demands on our health care, Social Security and law enforcement infrastructures, Democrats want this fresh pool of uninformed and needy voters who will support every new government entitlement program under the sun.

And never mind that China and India are challenging our world economic dominance, Congressional Democrats won’t even consider replacing the anti-growth tax code or making the recent tax cuts permanent to continue to fuel our healthy and growing economy.

Ignorance, apathy and impatience by the people of this country are the Democrats’ greatest political weapon, and they know how to use them.

Never mind the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and never mind remaining the only world superpower.

Political power comes first for the Democratic leaders.