Kerry, who hit the campaign trail after almost a week on vacation, was the star of a Democratic "unity" dinner in Washington where party leaders, including former Presidents Clinton and Carter, rallied the party faithful. [...] Earlier, at a rally at George Washington University, Kerry and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean pledged to put their sometimes-bitter primary fight behind them. [...] "In the end, it is Generation Dean voting for John Kerry for president of the United States that is going to send George Bush back to Texas where he belongs," Dean said

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance recited in public schools, a deeper, more fundamental question has not even been raised: Why are young children being pressured to make a pledge they lack the knowledge to understand and the maturity to commit themselves to?

Children do not give the Pledge careful consideration and decide, daily, to pledge allegiance to their country under God with liberty and justice for all. The Pledge is a political statement and--since 1954, when "God" was added--a religious statement. The only reason children recite the Pledge is that their educators expect them to.

The purpose of education should be to teach children the knowledge and thinking skills they need to succeed in life, not to train them in parroting political and religious ideas they can't possibly grasp.

Top members of the Bush administration sharply rebuffed their former counterterrorism chief Monday, calling his assertions in a new book about the White House's handling of terrorism and Iraq "deeply irresponsible" and "flat-out wrong." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Richard Clarke had engaged in a "retrospective rewriting of the history."

In his book "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," published Monday, Clarke accuses the Bush administration of ignoring repeated warnings about an al Qaeda threat in 2001 and looking for an excuse to attack Iraq at the expense of battling terrorism.

The truth is that from a public perspective at least, Dick Clarke did not run around before 9/11 warning everybody about Bin Laden bringing about a new Pearl Harbour. He warned that computer viruses or hackers would bring about a "digital Pearl Harbour!"

Q: As far as international crimes go, what's the one largest threat to U.S. citizens right now? MR. CLARKE: I think the largest threat is obviously posed by international narcotics smuggling, which costs a number of lives and costs an enormous amount of money.

Clarke's testimonials are, in a word, bizarre. In his own world, Clarke was the hero who warned Bush administration officials about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda ad nauseam. The Bush administration, in Clarke's world, just didn't care. In Clarke's world, eight months of Bush administration counterterrorism policy is more important than eight years of Clinton administration counterterrorism policy.

[W]hat's very interesting is that, of course, Dick Clarke was the counterterrorism czar in 1998 when the [African] embassies were bombed. He was the counterterrorism czar in 2000 when the Cole was bombed. He was the counterterrorism czar for a period of the '90s when al Qaeda was strengthening and when the plots that ended up in September 11 were being hatched. The fact is, we needed a new strategy, and that's what we asked Dick Clarke to give us.

Israel's targeted killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin was as justified as would be America's targeted killing of Osama bin Laden. Yassin, the founder and "spiritual leader" of a terrorist organization responsible for the murder and maiming of hundreds of innocents, got what he deserved. That heads of state from London to Paris criticized Israel's action instead of applauding it reveals, once again, their utter moral bankruptcy--and their seemingly endless willingness to appease evil. But as logic suggests and history demonstrates, appeasing evil only emboldens it, and those who fail to learn this lesson invariably become targets of evil themselves.

Israel Defense Forces acknowledged that it intentionally targeted the Hamas leader, saying Yassin was responsible for planning and directing terrorist attacks. "This morning, in a security forces operation in the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF targeted a car carrying the head of the Hamas terror organization, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his aides," an IDF statement said. "Yassin, responsible for numerous murderous terror attacks, resulting in the deaths of many civilians, both Israeli and foreign, was killed in the attack." Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization, has been labeled by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. [...] Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon thanked the security forces who carried out the operation and said the "war on terror is not over." "The ideological essence of this man was one -- the murder and killing of Jews wherever they are and the destruction of the state of Israel," Sharon said.

The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which increases the fines for the broadcast of "obscene, indecent, and profane language," is itself an indecent obscenity.

The FCC's power to regulate any speech is a violation of the right to free speech. The First Amendment clearly states: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Such freedom requires that the airwaves, like the printing press, be used in complete freedom--any way their owners wish (short of libel, fraud and the like). Just as each individual should determine what he sees or hears, so each media company should determine what it broadcasts.

Parents--not media professionals or government bureaucrats--are the ones who have the responsibility for supervising what their children see and hear in the media. If people find a program objectionable, they are free to turn it off. It is as simple as that.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on Monday urged Kerry to "be straightforward" with American voters and disclose which international leaders told him they support him. If he won't, McClellan said, "then the only alternative is that he is making it up to attack the president of the United States.

What Kerry is doing here is playing a Washington game that enables him to be on both sides of virtually every issue. [...] The bottom line is this: when it really mattered, on final passage, Kerry voted against funding for our troops in Iraq. He's now trying to say he voted the other way.

Kerry aides told [The Miami Herald's Peter] Wallsten that Kerry voted against the final bill because he disagreed with some technicalities added at the last minute, but that he voted for an earlier version of the bill. But every piece of legislation that comes before the Senate is subjected to a succession of votes, many of them tactical in nature. The only vote that counts is final passage. If it were otherwise, any legislator could claim to have voted for or against almost any bill, depending on the audience, and there would be no accountability at all.

The widespread condemnation of American companies for outsourcing their operations has no legitimate moral basis. American companies have the moral right to cut their costs and maximize their profits by doing business with anyone anywhere on earth (excluding, of course, people or businesses in countries that threaten or are at war with America).

The claim that outsourcing jobs hurts Americans misses the big picture. If companies that need to outsource to be competitive won't do it, they won't remain in business for long, and thus won't be able to offer Americans any jobs. Moreover, while true that Americans who would have taken the outsourced jobs will have to look for work elsewhere, the fact is that all American consumers benefit from the lower production costs and prices that result from outsourcing.

Just as Americans are right to shop for the best deals, American companies are right to shop for the best hires. And just as Americans have no moral obligation to buy American goods, American companies have no moral obligation to employ American workers.