One of my favorite heroes of the Second World War was Winston Churchill. Any British school child could tell you that Churchill faced the nearly impossible task of keeping the morale of his people high in a time of great privation. England alone stood against Germany and was rewarded by daily and nightly air raids. Everywhere he went the often grumpy, embattled, and always witty (and not sober) Prime Minister gave hope to his battered and bombed-out people by the mere act of holding up his right hand, palm out, index and middle fingers spread apart signifying a V; a V for Victory. This simple act bespoke a truth that every war-weary Brit knew to his core. Ole Winnie would never, ever, settle for anything less than total Victory over a hated and tyrannical foe. Churchill’s simple act of defiance against the all-powerful field-grey legions of Hitler’s Wehrmacht gave reason for the conquered peoples of Europe to continue the fight against the Nazi invader. Resistance groups across the Continent splashed alley walls and city squares with giant painted Vs. V became more than a letter, it became a promise that one day Europe would once again breathe the fresh air of freedom that an Allied Victory would bring.

Flash forward more than 60 years later. America finds itself at war with a foe just as tyrannical and vile as the Nazis. Like the generation that has been labeled the “greatest,” the youth of today have also sent many of their best and brightest to fight in the wastes of Iraq and the forbidding mountains of Afghanistan. Like our illustrious predecessors, we too have endured death and lamented the loss of many brilliant, beautiful and promising young lives. But unlike the struggle 60 years hence, America is divided in its counsel, and, I dare say, not committed to Victory; an omission that clouds the sacrifice of those who have fallen. Nothing manifests this truly tragic state of affairs than the actions of our putative Commander-in-Chief.

In his speech at West Point, President Obama promised to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan by 30,000. He spoke at great length of the necessity of increasing the strength of the Afghan Army as well as holding Pakistan accountable for its lapses in judgment where the Taliban is concerned. Obama further outlined his disastrous decision to impose an impossible timeline for withdrawal of said US troops in what can only be considered an abject admission of the US’ lack of interest and commitment toward a successful conclusion to the fight in Afghanistan. Finally, Obama failed to mention, in his 4300 plus words, one: Victory.

Why is Victory important? How is it that a single word can change the entire complexion of a war involving hundreds of thousands? It is quite simple. Victory is a commitment to win. Victory is a covenant to put tyranny in its place. Victory gives comfort to those who have lost their loved ones and validates the ultimate sacrifice that so many willingly undertook. Victory sends a message to our friends and foes alike that we are in the fight to the end and that we will stop at nothing. Anything less is a stab in the back of those in the armed forces fighting, and dying, to bring this war to a successful conclusion.

One marvels at the absurdity of a war-time president that is not committed to Victory. After all, who gets in a fight to lose? No doubt defenders of the President will be quick to point out that he did not get us into Afghanistan, nor did he mismanage the war prior to his election in 2008. What those people fail to realize is that it IS Obama’s responsibility to finish the fight and to secure a successful, and Victorious conclusion. As the Dear One pointed out in his historic run for president, “Afghanistan is a war of necessity.” I would think, by implication, that wars of “necessity” should generally be wars that are won and not cast aside when they become politically inconvenient (say, for example, in late 2011 prior to his re-election bid…).

Can real Victory be achieved in Afghanistan? Certainly “winning” in the Kush is not the signing of a surrender document on the deck of a battleship, nor is it a negotiated armistice in Paris. In the War on Terror there are no armies to crush or a capital to take. As such, we need to s trive for a species of Victory. What we can expect is an Afghanistan where the people are allowed to choose their destinies without the interference of tyrants and where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are broken, discredited and irrelevant entities. Any species of Victory is far more preferable to no Victory at all.

So on one hand we have a leader who despises the word Victory and on the other the man who imposes a ludicrous timeline on a surge to nowhere. Are these the actions of a man, and a government, that is committed to winning? Or are they the actions of a man attempting to placate both the anti-war wing of his party and those who still believe that the US must, by necessity, win this war?

What contempt does history have for those peoples who deign to defend themselves? What disdain will future generations of Americans have for us when they read our chapter in their history books? Those who fight wars to lose, by implication abdicating all responsibility of their own defense, deserve to be relegated to the scrap heap of history.

In the end it boils down to a single word. Some, mostly those who have never sacrificed one iota for this nation, dismiss Obama’s glaring omission by claiming that the word Victory in itself is unimportant, nothing more than a jingoistic expression of the prior imperialistic and chauvinistic administration. I think Winston Churchill and hundreds of millions of free people in Europe, to say nothing of posterity, would humbly and forcefully disagree.

I was distraught and anxious in ways I couldn’t articulate. In some ways it was like a dream that wouldn’t end, not a nightmare per se, but not exactly a romp in the sheets with Megan Fox either. It was the discomfort of person well aware of the old adage that one should be careful of what they wish for. In their wisdom the ancients gave warning that many still fail to heed….Yes, I was watching the rise, fall, casting off, redemption of, implosion of and rebirth of the phenomenon that has become Sarah Palin. A year long agony that may never end.

Like pandora’s box I had helped unleash a pox (of sorts) upon the land. For before John McCain made his momentous decision I had been actively lobbying for Palin’s consideration as VP candidate. I wrote, I lobbied my friends and generally pined for an option that few took seriously and I wasn’t the only one. My logic was simple, she was new, she was fresh, she was a reformer and she was a MILF. What more could a public starved for heroes want (or junor officers looking for someone in their chain-of-command to fantasize about)? Of course, I knew that the selection of such a newcomer would come with a price of its own insofar as it would be necessary to continue the defining of Palin well after the fanfare of her entrance. History proved me correct as what followed the perfect introduction was the most imperfect handling of a candidate since Josef Stalin ran on the Green Soil ticket in 1896.

The weeks following the GOP convention were nothing short of a savaging so brutal that few could watch without feeling lurid, shameful and unclean. Distortions great and small abounded, and lies were treated as the gospel. The media whispered openly of salacious and pornographic fantasies so revolting that to replicate them here would send children, nuns, kittens, Mormons and people from Nebraska fleeing to the hills (well, not the Nebraskans, they have no hills). The press howled and leftists jeered and conservatives either rallied around the outraged woman or cast her off for the media wolves to feed on. In the end there was little more than a bloody stain of a candidate, a smear, little more than a caricature and Tina Fey’s well honed delivery. Thus ended Sarah…or did it? It wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor and it certainly wasn’t over for Sarah either.

Flash forward a year. Far from being irrelevant Palin is now a force in her own right. A whirling dervish of political power and folksiness leaving destruction, puzzled pundits and insanely incontinent liberals in her wake. Palin rewrote the discourse on the proposed Obamacare overhaul with the infamous and pertinent “Death Panel” speech. She up-ended the special election in New York’s 23rd district (though not to the GOPs advantage). Her every action sees legions of would-be GOP nominees scurrying like rats to mimic her every move. In many ways she is the standard bearer and lightning rod that those seeking the Republican nomination must win over, or supplant, if they are to be successful.

With the publication of her autobiography,“Going Rogue,” Palin’s approval numbers now out-pace that of the Messiah Obama. Whereas the clueless and weak Dear One vacillates on Afghanistan, stumbles to and fro on Health Care and meekly watches as the world laughs at his personal diplomacy, appearances on Oprah and other high-profile shows have largely rehabilitated Palin’s image and have convinced many that she is not the monstrous jezzebel that the media had painted her as.

Once a joke, the thought of Palin running successfully in 2012 is no longer a laughing matter. At the very least, she will play the role of the ersatz king-maker for the GOP in 2012 and, perhaps, far beyond. Where the jackals once sneered and mocked her they now cower and urinate on themselves unsure of what they have done.

Indeed, the very process in which she had been destroyed, the unending and manic misogynistic attacks on her and her children, have strengthened her like the tempering of the blade of a samurai sword. Now rather than believing the attacks on her intelligence and character, more people than not see the media and the hateful Left as bullies, wilding a paragon of American womanhood whilst draped in the illusion feminist clothing. Finally good people everywhere have become sick to the stomach of the truly barbaric and savage attacks that have been par for the course regarding Palin. Robin of Berkeley, an avowed feminist and renounced liberal, writes:

“And so the Left must try to destroy her. And they are doing this in the most malicious of ways: by symbolically raping her…Liberals do this by calling her a c__t, ogling her legs, demeaning her with names like “slutty flight attendant” and “Trailer Park Barbie,” and exposing her flesh on the cover of Newsweek. And from Atlantic Magazine’s Andrew Sullivan “Sarah Palin’s vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy.”

Read more here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_wilding_of_sarah_palin.html

They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…that is true, though they can now say that hell hath no fury than feminists turning on their own for the crime of ultimately rendering hollow their twisted view of what womanhood can and should be. Nothing so ugly, so rapacious and so vile ever made it more clear that the cretins on the far Left were far from being on the side of women.

Things change. What worked before will not again. Like Count Dooku after Master Yoda casually swatted aside his burst of force lightning in Star Wars Episode II, the bullies in the media are now at a loss as to how to proceed. The radical leftists and all efite, elitist liberal snobs everywhere are at loggerheads of how to treat this whirlwind. Where once they gloated over brie and anti-American slogans on the misery they had inflicted on Simple Sarah, Caribou Barbie of the North, they now quake at the juggernaut that they helped create. After all, how does one destroy a politician that has absorbed every projectile within the Left’s smarmy arsenal?

Only time will tell. She defies explanation. No other politician has ever been so defiled and yet managed to survive and in many ways propser. Some theorize that like all sensations, she will disappear, forgotten like so many Rueben Studdards. But then again, maybe not. After all, hasn’t her fifteen minutes run their course? Will there come a day when the Left rues the day they attacked and sexualized Palin’s minor children? Will there come a time when they regret the horrifically graphic and sexually disturbing slurs and barbs they once defamed her with? Will there be a reckoning when everyone that ever dimissed Sarah Palin as a slutty, trailer trash rube will realize they sowed the seeds of their own destruction? I gleefully await, as should all God fearing men and women, the day that providence punishes those savages in a manner best befitting their worst outrages by electing her President.