For Democrats, It Is All About Winning Power In DC.

"When gas prices rose to near record levels this summer, it was supposedly due to the incompetence of the Bush administration. Gas prices have now dropped to well under $3 a gallon where I live. If it was Bush's "incompetence" that caused the spike, does he now get credit for the decline? Market forces set gas prices, so he should neither be blamed for the spike, nor praised for the decline, but the Democrats won't see it that way.

August employment figures again show a healthy economy due largely to what Democrats call "irresponsible" tax cuts for the wealthy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total non-farm payroll employment increased by 128,000 last month, with the unemployment rate staying at a low 4.7 percent. Does the president get competence points for this? Not from Democrats.

The war on terror scored an important victory last weekend with the arrest of al-Qaida's No. 2 in Iraq, Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi. Iraqi and coalition forces issued a statement that said the arrest has caused al-Qaida a "serious leadership crisis." Will Democrats and their media allies praise the Bush administration for this sign of competence in fighting the Iraq War? No, because this is about Democrats regaining power and nothing more. Were the Bush administration to announce it had discovered the fountain of youth and cures for cancer and adolescent rebellion, it wouldn't be enough.

At a symposium last spring on "Islam and the West," which was sponsored by The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations noted, "The human species is facing a huge historical, cultural problem. … For reasons that have very little to do with the U.S., we need to face the fact that we'll be living with this for a very long time." Mead said it isn't just an Arab problem, but an Islamic world problem, which transcends borders and regions. "If you don't understand this, you're deluding yourself," he said.

Do Democrats and their media allies understand this or are they deluding themselves? What would they do differently from the Bush administration in credibly fighting this plague that transcends borders, regions and even political parties? Should Democrats win a congressional majority in the fall election, they must do more than try to frustrate the president, hoping to win the White House in 2008. The war won't wait for them to prove their competence, or incompetence. " - Cal Thomas