Philadelphia morning talk guy Michael Smerconish has put together 15 points in what he describes as “The World According to Me.” He says he’s “doing a personal, political sanity check in the aftermath of the 2006 Midterm Election, trying to determine whether I'm registered in the party that best reflects my views. I have doubts. And I see a battle coming for the direction of the party of Lincoln. Will we become a party epitomized by individuals with names like Giuliani, Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg or Frist, Coulter and Dobson?”

Well, obviously this is brilliant pot-stirring, largely aimed at goosing his audience, but I’ll take the bait anyway.

1. Bin Laden. I want a continuous commitment of manpower directed toward finding and killing Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri. It matters not to me whether they are isolated, neutered, and disengaged, nor whether they are in Pakistan. I want them hunted, found and caused to suffer a heinous death. The full court press should never end.

Agree. When we look back on the Bush presidency, the failure at Tora Bora must now be placed near the top of the list of its more significant missteps, and it cost him votes. There was much jesting talk (and serious talk in the fever swamp left) that Bush actually had Bin Laden, but was waiting for the exact critical political moment to unveil his capture. Well, I assume the events of the last week have put an end to this theory. Surely this disclosure was due about the middle of the day last Thursday. This pretty much sums up the ridiculous nature of the angry left’s hyper-paranoia. Bush (or Rove) was never quite as Machiavellian as was believed in some quarters. Some will question whether there is any point to capturing an isolated, no-longer-in-command Bin Laden. Yes there is: his capture would reverberate across the region.

2. Profiling. Let's look for terrorists who look like terrorists. Those who threaten us have similarities. In virtually every instance, they have race, gender, ethnicity, religion and appearance in common. Those characteristics should be considered as we seek to prevent terrorist strikes against the United States. Everyone needs to be screened, but some more than others. When the terrorists start looking like Thurston Howell, III, we will change accordingly.

Agree. This is the direct result of Bush’s insane choice to allow Norman Maneta, a Clinton Administration holdover and an adamant opponent of sensible profiling, to remain at Transportation, and it cost him votes. You can’t hide the failure of airport security: Millions travel, and witness it firsthand. The Israeli model must be explicitly adopted, and until it is, DOT and TSA are doing nothing to make us safer. The only thing that is preventing another terrorist attack via plane is the recognition that the average passengers will have no qualms about laying their lives on the line to stop any attempt. That’s something the terrorists understand.

3. Torture. Once we identify the bad guys, we need to glean from them information of impending attacks by any means necessary, and that includes torture. If you believe it NOT to be efficacious, tell me why our best, brightest and most experienced interrogators continually seek to use it as a technique? Answer: it works.

Agree. There are essentially two arguments against this view. One is a classic case of liberal magical thinking—torture is beneath us. Call it the Andrew Sullivan stance. It’s nonsense. The other argument is legal—that there is no point to torture because the info you get would be inadmissible/unconstitutional. This is the Clinton Era strategy against terror in nutshell. The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and it doesn’t MATTER if the info you get via torture is admissible if you are never going to place it before a judge! The info you would get via torture is the kind of info you hand over to Jack Bauer so he can go kill bad guys. It has nothing to do with the courts. (This is also the reason why we don’t need warrants for “eavesdropping.”)

4. Preventing Terror. We need to implement all the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, those who were entrusted to study what went wrong pre-9/11 and recommend how to prevent its recurrence.
 

Disagree. Smerconish is in love with the fargin’ 9-11 commission. It served a fine purpose in setting forth an accurate record as to what happened. But its policy recommendations are hopelessly flawed. Let me put it like this, before I will take seriously liberal calls to implement the 9-11 commission's recommendations, I demand that every person making such calls stipulate that 9-11 happened the way the commission says it happened, and publicly repudiate the conspiracy theories.

5. Iraq. We need an end game. And don't call it "cut and run". As a matter of fact, if anything is unpatriotic, it's not affording our soldiers an explanation of how their mission will end. It's time to articulate an exit strategy so as to light a fire under Iraqis and let them know they need to stand on their own two feet sooner than later.

Disagree. But only because this is worded the way it is. As I’ve been saying, we need to begin building a massive permanent DEFENSIBLE base, with its own airfield, out in the empty desert between the Syrian border and Baghdad. As soon as possible, we need to place about 25,000 active duty soldiers (no Reserves or Guardsmen) in the barracks there. Send the Reservists and Guardsmen home. In that base, training of the Iraqi military will continue. From that base, platoons largely consisting of Iraqi soldiers, but led by Americans, will issue on special missions as needed. The rest of it—the traffic directing and curfew enforcement and all the other duties that are making our troops targets, should immediately be up to the Iraqis, effective immediately. As for an "exit strategy," there should be no timetables, but clear and specific benchmarks.

6. Immigration. Our borders are porous. They need to be closed. Only when they are closed should we make decisions as to what to do with the millions who are already here illegally. It is impractical to believe we will ship them back to wherever they came from. But through attrition, and by ensuring no more of their friends and relatives join them, we will probably diminish the herd.

Agree. And Mickey Kaus has noted in the last few days that he may have been wrong in believing the conventional wisdom that a Democrat Congress will give Bush the “comprehensive” :::coughAMNESTYcough::: immigration bill he wants. Many observers are beginning to recognize that every candidate that campaigned on "comprehensive" reforml lost, and those that campaigned on the “border security first, then we’ll talk about the rest” approach—including Democrats like Jim Webb—won. 700 miles of fence wasn’t enough to keep the party in power.

7. Gays. Homosexuals do not threaten my marriage. Heterosexual marriages have their own troubles, but the fate of conventional marriages has nothing to do with whether same sex couples can marry one another or partake in a civil union. No guy now married to a woman is waiting in the wings for a court decision trying to decide whether to ditch his spouse and hook up with a man. As we seek to find some accommodation for same sex couples, we need to end that false argument.

Disagree. This is a straw man, and one that betrays Michael’s brain-dead thought process on this issue. He should sit down with his pal and co-religionist Rick Santorum and actually LISTEN when Rick explains why he (Smerconish) is so confused on this. I probably can’t do it as clearly and succinctly as Rick would, but here goes. When somebody like Dobson says that gay marriage threatens traditional marriage, he’s not talking about a secret army of hubbies who have quietly been dreaming of walking down the aisle with their fishing buddies. What he means is that marriage is supposed to MEAN something. And when you dilute what something means, the point of near-meaninglessness, everybody involved in that something is affected by that. Example: Remember the TV show MASH? In one episode, for wacky reasons that escape me, Hawkeye pins his captain’s bars on Radar in order to get him into an officer’s club. When questioned, Hawkeye says the army is experimenting: “You’ve heard of a lieutenant major? Well this is a corporal captain!” Enlisted man Radar is abashed, and the querulous officer is offended. The reason—both know that becoming an officer is something that takes time and effort. It’s not a right, it’s a reward. So is (or should be) marriage. When you make it meaningless (or nearly so) that involves everybody whose ever taken the vows. Where I break company with many on the anti-gay-marriage side is when their legislative bans include civil unions as well. I support civil unions, and I believe they should confer on citizens most (but not all!) of the priviledges afforded to married couples (inherence, visitation and insurance rights, even tax breaks). But DON’T call it marriage.

8. Abortion. I want to be registered in a party that has room in its tent for pro-life and pro-choice views. And Plan B should be sold over the counter to individuals 18 and over. And I surely don't want politicians determining my end of life plan.

Agree. But, again, only because he put it in exactly this way. I would favor outlawing abortions after the first trimester, except in cases of rape, incest and where the life of the mother (not the HEALTH of the mother) is threatened. But I’ve always been of the view that viability outside the womb, not an ideology that says a zygote is the same as a fetus, should determine the point when abortions should and should not be allowed. Outlawing abortion in the first trimester, and especially abortifactants like “Plan B,” seems to me to unreasonable. To be very blunt, anybody who favors this stance should also be required to explain how the state and federal governments plan to deal with the sea of unwanted babies that will wash up on firehouse and police department steps. Our inner cities (and suburbs!) are full of young girls making mistakes. Their young lives should not be destroyed because of one stupid moment of weakness (or ineptitude). As for the first sentence of this one, I don’t know that either party is fully welcoming in that way, but I think the GOP does better in this regard—or at least, as a Guiliani booster, I hope so.

9. Embryonic Stem Cells Research. Do it. Fund it. Pardon my callous nature, but that which exists in a Petri dish is undeserving of the full rights that are afforded a viable fetus.

Disagree. I’m not opposed to embryonic stem cell research. I’m opposed to government funding for an unproven idea that has shown ZERO results in the lab. Do it privately, and when you have some concrete success to show for it, THEN ask for government funding. I agree with the second part of the statement. And frankly this sounds to me like a great, constructive way to use the thousands, maybe millions, of fertilized eggs currently sitting in freezers at fertility clinics, that will otherwise be thrown out. Allowing people to donate them should be legal. As for the moral issues, I don’t see it. I am seldom persuaded by slippery slope arguments. I do not foresee warehouses full of clones hanging from hooks, even if some important breakthrough was found using this technique.

10. Term Limits. We need citizen politicians, not professionals. Two terms in the Senate and six in the House seems like plenty to ensure we get grounded folks who are capable of earning a living when not serving us.

Disagree. This sounds reasonable, but it simply doesn’t work in practice. Let the people decide. Every example of excesses by superannuated legislators can be countered by examples of veteran lawmakers with seniority doing the kind of deft parliamentary work that no novice would manage.

11. Campaign Finance. Let's stop trying to regulate campaign donations. Someone will always find a loophole. Let anyone spend whatever they are willing to affect the outcome of a race, so long as there is full and immediate disclosure, so voters can react accordingly.
 

Agree. And so do most Republicans. It’s one of the reasons the John McCain will NEVER EVER get the GOP nomination.

12. Entitlements. Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements make up more than half of our federal spending. The number of people on Social Security and Medicare will double in the next 15 years, and life expectancy continues to grow. We cannot afford to continue the status quo. Time to confront AARP: the retirement age in this country needs to be raised from 65 to 70. Balanced Budget should not be two dirty words. I do not want my children and grandchildren saddled with paying for our wasteful spending.
 

Agree. And I’m one of the people who will have to wait longer to get on board the government gravy train. But if 50 is the new 40, then 70 is the new 65.

13. Death Taxes. We all work so hard just trying to lead a comfortable life in the hopes of leaving nest eggs for our children. It's un-American that when we check out, Uncle Sam will be standing there with his hand out to tax our earnings for the second time. The estate tax must end.

Agree. Let’s do everything we can to put more wealth in the hands of more people. Families can do that better than bureaucrats.

14. Global Warming. Beats the hell out of me. But given the apparent stakes if the concerns are valid, I think we should err on the side of taking precaution.

Disagree. As George Carlin says: “The Earth is fine.”

15. Guns. A symptom, not cause of our problems. Single parent households pose more of a threat to safety than firearms. Let's address that issue.

Agree. I don’t own one, but guns are one of the tools that built this country. But I also agree with the current restrictions, such as waiting periods and background checks.