Talk show host, columnist, and fan-of-truth Dennis Prager has written what I consider to be one of the most important columns you will ever read in your life.  (How's that for an over-the-top build-up?)

While it cannot be proven, there is little reason to doubt that many on the Left are disappointed that the Times Square bomber didn't turn out to be the "white male" he was originally identified as.

This allegation may be wrong, but it is made on the basis of compelling evidence.  There is a perfectly clear pattern on the Left -- the normative Left, not just the "far" Left -- that denies the obvious when it comes to Islamic terrorism.

He continues:

Take, for example, Maj. Nidal Hasan, who murdered 13 fellow soldiers and tried to murder the 32 others whom he wounded at Fort Hood, Texas.  For days after the murders, liberal-Left commentators and mainstream media reports attributed Hasan's mass murders to everything but his Islamic beliefs -- even though it was known that he yelled out "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is the Greatest") just as he began his shooting.

As "Hardball's" Chris Matthews announced, "It's unclear if religion was a factor in this shooting," and then added, "He makes a phone call or whatever, according to Reuters right now. Apparently he tried to contact al-Qaida ... That's not a crime, to call up al-Qaida, is it?"

The New York Times "Week in Review" article on the shootings was titled "When Soldiers Snap." As I wrote at the time, "The gist of the article was that Maj. Hasan had snapped -- even though he had never been in combat. He snapped in advance. Just two sentences in the article were devoted to the possibility that his motives were in any way relatable to his Muslim faith."

NPR'S Tom Gjelten offered the novel explanation that Hasan, who had never been in combat, may have suffered from "pre-traumatic stress disorder." Again, psychology, not religion.

On Fox News, Geraldo Rivera said, "I don't know what motivates him ... He could have had a toothache and gone off because of that."

That was then, back in November of last year, but what about this time around with the Times Square would-be bomber?

This time, the same thing happened, with one exception: For two days, it was assumed a "white male," shorthand for non-Muslim, non-minority American, tried to blow up passersby near Times Square in Manhattan.

New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this to Katie Couric on CBS News on May 3: "If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody who's homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something, it could be anything."

It's OK for liberals to speculate that a terrorist might be a Right-wing white American opposed to ObamaCare (aka a tea partier). It is the rather more likely scenario of an Islamic terrorist that liberals not consider, let alone publicly express.

I attribute the lack of intellectual honesty on the part of the media (and politicians such as Mayor Bloomberg) to three things:

1. People are rightly afraid of the physical harm that may befall them or their family for speaking out against militant Islamic terror.  Critics of the irreconcilable wing of Islam have been intimidated, threatened, and even assassinated all around the globe.  In light of this, and however much I disagree with it, I can completely understand a public figure's timidity in addressing the fact that while not every Muslim is a terrorist, nearly every terrorist we've encountered as a nation the past 20 years has been a Muslim.

2. Political correctness.  This cultural phenomena has already been eating away at the moral and intellectual fibers of this nation for some time now.  The bizarre obsession people who practice the Ways of PC have with being nice more than being right is itself a threat to our way of life in the West.  How can I say I love my family and country when I won't even publicly recognize the evil that seeks to destroy them?  Especially when my rationale for not public recognizing the evil is rooted in my desire to avoid being called "intolerant" by by other feckless people who are ignoring the same things I am, and for no more than the same petty reasons as mine?  You are not more moral or compassionate when you cover up the misdeeds of groups of people merely because they have darker skin complexions or foreign accents.

3. Political pandering to potential voters and current constituents.  Mayor Bloomberg has a city full of diverse ethnic heritages, and that is an awesome, American thing about a place like NYC.  But we need our leaders to protect us, first and foremost.  I don't care if my senator, congressman, mayor, or governor gets re-elected, no matter how much I may love his brand of politics, if he or she is unwilling to do everything in his/her power to keep me safe.  The media has a role in this as well, as they are supposed to be the gatekeepers of relevant and important information for the public.

Of course the explanation for why it is so many have tried to explain away the Muslim background of recent killers (and would-be mass murderers, in the case of the Time Sqaure nut) might be a combination of dozens of reasons, but the fact remains that when the press and high-ranking Center-Left officials discover that an attacker who is of the Islamic persuasion has conducted (or attempted) a terrorist attack on American soil, they bury the lead.

Just remember this: If Shahzad had not been identified as the would-be bomber, the mainstream (i.e., liberal) news media and leading Democrats would have told us repeatedly that a white male -- surely a conservative white male -- was the Times Square terrorist, and that we should therefore be looking suspiciously at our fellow Americans on the Right, especially those attending tea parties. For while liberals claim not to know the motives of Muslim terrorists, they are always certain of conservatives' motives: racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia.

When, one day, the Left exits from history's stage, its epitaph will read: "Those who do not understand evil will not understand good."

Read the full column by Mr. Prager here.

As great as those videos were, and the fall out for the radical-Leftist ACORN was, Breitbart has so much more to offer.

His site, Breitbart.com, is the closest thing to DrudgeReport.com in terms of timely, important news reporting.  What is more, Andrew has launch a series of websites intended to specifically combat progressive and liberal ideas in the areas of Government, Hollywood, and Journalism.

Spend a few minutes and check each of those sites out, and make Breitbart.com a "Favorites" on your home computer.

At Big Government.com today, Dan Mitchell discusses the New York Times' report that more and more New Yorkers are accepting the welfare entitlement known as food stamps.  As frustrating as this news is, what makes it even worse is the key role some Republicans have played in promoting the culturally-crippling practice of A forcibly taking from B to give to C.

The ranking Republican on the Agriculture Committee is a big defender of the program, in part because of the sordid pact among urban and rural politicians to support each other’s handouts. And President George W. Bush’s food stamp administrator actually had the gall to assert “food stamps is not welfare.” No wonder the burden of federal spending skyrocketed during the reign of so-called compassionate conservatism.

The correct policy, of course, is to get the federal government out of the welfare business. If Mayor Bloomberg thinks it is a “civic duty” to expand food stamps, he should see whether New York City voters agree with him – and want to foot the bill.

As we approach the one year anniversary of Barack Obama's swearing in as the 44th president of the United States it is appropriate that we hear what Dr. Charles Krauthammer thinks of the Commander-in-Chief's performance thus far.

He begins:

What went wrong? A year ago, he was king of the world. Now President Obama's approval rating, according to CBS, has dropped to 46 percent -- and his disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded by Gallup at the beginning of an (elected) president's second year.

A year ago, he was leader of a liberal ascendancy that would last 40 years (James Carville). A year ago, conservatism was dead (Sam Tanenhaus). Now the race to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in bluest of blue Massachusetts is surprisingly close, with a virtually unknown state senator bursting on the scene by turning the election into a mini-referendum on Obama and his agenda, most particularly health care reform.

While liberal Democrats in congress and the media scramble to find explanations for their golden boy's plummeting numbers, Krauthammer thinks the dissatisfaction the majority of Americans now have with the president is much more than surface deep.

It's not about style; it's about substance. About which Obama has been admirably candid. This out-of-nowhere, least-known of presidents dropped the veil most dramatically in the single most important political event of 2009, his Feb. 24 first address to Congress. With remarkable political honesty and courage, Obama unveiled the most radical (in American terms) ideological agenda since the New Deal: the fundamental restructuring of three pillars of American society -- health care, education and energy.

Instead of making "fixing the economy" the focus of his presidency. thus far Obama has pursued Euro-socialist goals.  He is failing because all the people who fell for his "I'm a moderate...a new kind of politician" schtick are wising up to the fact that the man was a radical Leftist his entire adult life (and a wildly in-experienced candidate to-boot).

Nothing sums up the president's present predicament better than this:

Ideas matter. Legislative proposals matter. Slick campaigns and dazzling speeches can work for a while, but the magic always wears off.

Read the full column here.

The UK's Daily Express printed the top 100 reasons why global climate change, the kind the world's leading proponents of statism and collectivism are discussing in Copenhagen right now, is naturally caused.  The list was put together by The European Foundation, a think-tank located in London.

Here are a few of my favorite things from the list:

2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.

4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.

7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.

11) Politicians and activiists claim rising sea levels are a direct cause of global warming but sea levels rates have been increasing steadily since the last ice age 10,000 ago

19) A petition by scientists trying to tell the world that the political and media portrayal of global warming is false was put forward in the Heidelberg Appeal in 1992. Today, more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries have signed it.

24) It is a falsehood that the earth’s poles are warming because that is natural variation and while the western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer we also see that the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder

Read the rest of the list here.

I realize that it is not a fool-proof, case-closed argument to make, but does it not bother anyone else that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe have all been invited to speak at the Copenhagen conference?  All three men are totalitarian thugs who want nothing more than to harm the United States, especially its economy. Does it send up any warning flare to you man-made global warming believers that these wicked leaders of suppressive regimes would be so happy to help the West all of the sudden?

What is being proposed at the Climate Summit is the massive re-distribution of wealth to poorer countries and higher taxes for Western nations (i.e. America).  It will cripple our economy and hand portions of US sovereignty over to global governing bodies.  Can we afford this right now (or ever)?  Where are American climate change activists citing the Constitution in any of this?

"Shockingly", the mainstream media has ignored the story for two weeks. Two weeks!

Comedy Central's The Daily Show with John Stewart has even joined in the coverage of Climategate:

This picture, originally shot for a runner's magazine story, was shamelessly used as the cover of last week's Newsweek.  Story after story, talk show after talk show, Sarah Palin is treated with utter disrespect and disdain typically reserved for the likes of Saddam Hussein or O.J. Simpson.

The excuse that "Well, she is the one who got involved with politics...it's a tough business" only goes so far.

I think the most sickening thing I've come across in all the Palin coverage lately was the column Washington Post's Sally Quinn wrote, and the additional comments she made about Palin on The Oreillly Factor last Thursday evening.

I was bothered both at the personal nature of Ms. Quinn's attacks on Palin, but also at the gross mis-characterization of what it is evangelical Christians believe about things like pre-destination, free will, and God's sovereignty.

Certainly Palin could say that God planned for her to publish a book that would be a huge, bestseller, go on Oprah, and make an enormous amount of money. Why would God choose her? Why would God look at the suffering around the world of so many millions and say, Sarah, I'm going to give you all of this.

Perhaps God wants more out of Sarah Palin

Maybe God wants more out of snarky "journalists" like Sally Quinn who spend their days wallowing in their vitriol for a woman who happens to be attractive, successful, and conservative?

Let me simply suggest that no religious liberal politician has ever been run through the muck like this kind, decent, hard-working woman from Alaska.  I don't think she should run for president in 2012.  I don't like the way she's handled every minute detail of her public life.  But on the substance of public issues and personal values, I couldn't agree with her more.

CABLE NEWS RACE
NOV. 18, 2009

FOXNEWS HANNITY/PALIN 4,200,000
FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,868,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,512,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,383,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,235,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,980,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,041,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,036,000
MSNBC MADDOW 957,000
CNN KING 835,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 625,000
CNN COOPER 611,000

If you added up the viewers of all the networks not named Fox News Channel, it is 5.1 million.  Fox News = +17 million.

This is a blood-bath.  I realize that high ratings does not necessarily equate to a superior product, but in this case, up against Olbermann and Maddow, I like FNC's chances.

Chuck points out that the only people having a tough time describing Major Nidal Hasan as a Muslim jihadist are members of the media.

But, of course, if the shooter is named Nidal Hasan, whom National Public Radio reported had been trying to proselytize doctors and patients, then something must be found. Presto! Secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, a handy invention to allow one to ignore the obvious.

And the perfect moral finesse. Medicalizing mass murder not only exonerates. It turns the murderer into a victim, indeed a sympathetic one. After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won’t find it in DSM-IV-TR, psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), is known as “compassion fatigue.” The poor man — pushed over the edge by an excess of sensitivity.

Have we totally lost our moral bearings? Nidal Hasan (allegedly) cold-bloodedly killed 13 innocent people. In such cases, political correctness is not just an abomination. It’s a danger, clear and present.

He continues, discussing the warning signs that Maj. Hasan clearly exhibited to his colleagues in Maryland before being shipped to Fort Hood:

Was anything done about this potential danger? Of course not. Who wants to be accused of Islamophobia and prejudice against a colleague’s religion?

One must not speak of such things. Not even now. Not even after we know that Hasan was in communication with a notorious Yemen-based jihad propagandist. As late as Tuesday, the New York Times was running a story on how returning soldiers at Fort Hood had a high level of violence.

What does such violence have to do with Hasan? He was not a returning soldier. And the soldiers who returned home and shot their wives or fellow soldiers didn’t cry “Allahu Akbar!” as they squeezed the trigger.

The delicacy about the religion in question — condescending, politically correct, and deadly — is nothing new. A week after the first (1993) World Trade Center attack, the same New York Times ran the following front-page headline about the arrest of one Mohammed Salameh: “Jersey City Man Is Charged in Bombing of Trade Center.”

Ah yes, those Jersey men — so resentful of New York, so prone to violence.

Then, to be fair, there was this gem mocking my peeps over at Fox News Channel.

And with all of that evidence, every liberal in America, from President Obama to Anderson Cooper to Homeland Security Chief Janet Napalitano, insisted that no one "jump to any conclusions."

Really?  Conclusions about what?  Not that the man might have been motivated by his perverted view of Islam to slaughter fellow soldiers, right?  Who would think such a thing?

Do you have any ketchup popsicles to sell me that might match my new white gloves?

But don't believe this sarcastic blogger that what happened at Fort Hood was most certainly terrorism.  From ABC News:

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

The military knew this man was insane, and yet let him continue to be the person soldiers came to for counseling after fighting in a war that Hasan hated (only slightly more than Code Pink and the anti-war Left in this country).

I'm gonna let Mark Steyn take this blog-post home with an excerpt from his latest, and I dare say brilliant, column:

When it emerged early Thursday afternoon that the shooter was Nidal Malik Hasan, there appeared shortly thereafter on Twitter a flurry of posts with the striking formulation: "Please judge Maj. Malik Nadal [sic] by his actions and not by his name."

Concerned tweeters can relax: There was never really any danger of that – and not just in the sense that the New York Times' first report on Maj. Hasan never mentioned the words "Muslim" or "Islam," or that ABC's Martha Raddatz's only observation on his name was that "as for the suspect, Nadal Hasan, as one officer's wife told me, 'I wish his name was Smith.'"

What a strange reaction. I suppose what she means is that, if his name were Smith, we could all retreat back into the same comforting illusions that allowed the bureaucracy to advance Nidal Malik Hasan to major and into the heart of Fort Hood while ignoring everything that mattered about the essence of this man.

Honestly, this might be one of the most important articles you ever read.  Please finish Steyn's masterpiece right here.