Nothing symbolizes American strength and vigor more than another unaccountable Washington bureaucrat.

The current health care takeover proposals feature a crucial payoff to Big Labor - a golden exemption from any tax on union members' generous health care benefits. The friends and patrons of Obama may be making out like bandits. But for everyone else, the Democrats' ideological bankruptcy comes at a nauseatingly steep price.

Contrary to the belief that Obama is America's Lightworker who can defy political gravity, H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, guarantees more of the same old borrow-spend-panic-repeat cycle that got us into our current mess in the first place.

In civilized societies, if you are offended by a cartoon, you do not burn flags, take up guns and raid buildings, chant death to your opponents, or threaten suicide bombings. You write a letter to the editor.

Out: Reading is fundamental. In: Feeling is fundamental.

Let me sum up in two words how the unhinged Left copes with the threat of global jihad: "Kill Bush!"

Raising the traditional and early retirement ages will mean extending workers' taxable earning years, fueling economic growth and putting a dent in our unfunded-liabilities crisis by delaying payouts.