CONSERVATIVES NEED 12-STEP PROGRAM TO MANHOOD

It's pretty pathetic when a Kennedy is too drunk to drive into the Potomac. After the visibly intoxicated Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashed his car into a police barrier near the Capitol just before 3 a.m. last Thursday morning, he explained to the police he was hurrying back to the Capitol for a vote, a procedure known on the Hill as "last call." It could have been a lot worse: Patrick's designated driver that night was Ted Kennedy.

At some point in his scrolling list of excuses, Kennedy eventually claimed he was addicted to prescription drugs and checked himself into the newly opened Kennedy Wing of the Mayo Clinic. He explained he had been "sleep driving." If people fall for his story, his father, Ted, plans to attribute his last immigration bill to "sleep legislating."

Coming right on the heels of a three-year witch-hunt directed at Rush Limbaugh for an addiction to prescription drugs (because of his politics) — as well as the continuing threat to put Tom DeLay in prison (because of his politics) — you would think there would be at least some serious discussion of prosecuting the young Kennedy for his addiction to prescription drugs, too.

Perhaps the Republican attorney general in Washington needs to interview Democratic Palm Beach prosecutor Barry Krischer, who wasted three years and untold taxpayer dollars trying to frame Limbaugh, about the danger to society of prescription drug addiction.

Baseball has a system to protect batters from being hit: If your pitcher hits one of our guys, our pitcher will hit one of your guys. This is also the only argument that ever works with Democrats.

Democrats adored the independent counsel statute — until it was used to catch an actual felon in the Oval Office. Then they noticed all sorts of problems with the law. Democrats swore up and down that women never lie about rape — until that same felon was credibly accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick on "NBC News," not to mention the four other card-carrying Democratic women who described being raped by Bill Clinton in eerily similar detail in Christopher Hitchens' book "No One Left To Lie To."

Conservatives will continue to be threatened with prison on trumped-up charges until Democrats start having to worry about being prosecuted for minor offenses, too — though, in Kennedy's case, not as minor as Rush Limbaugh's offense, which never involved smashing his car into a police barrier. (In Rep. Kennedy's defense, at least he didn't drown the woman in his car and then disappear for nine hours.)

Democrats have declared war against Republicans, and Republicans are wandering around like a bunch of ninny Neville Chamberlains, congratulating themselves on their excellent behavior. They'll have some terrific stories about their Gandhi-like passivity to share while sitting in cells at Guantanamo after Hillary is elected.

For a political party that grasps the concept of victory against foreign enemies, Republicans can't seem to grasp that concept when it comes to domestic enemies. Instead of taking a page from Sun-tzu's "Art of War," when it comes to fighting liberals, American conservatives prefer the Jimmy Carter unconditional surrender strategy.

Patriotic Americans don't have to become dangerous psychotics like liberals, but they could at least act like men.

Why hasn't the former spokesman for the Taliban matriculating at Yale been beaten even more senseless than he already is? According to Hollywood, this nation is a cauldron of ethnic hatreds positively brimming with violent skinheads. Where are the skinheads when you need them? What does a girl have to do to get an angry, club- and torch-wielding mob on its feet?

There is not the remotest possibility that a man who was recently defending shooting women in the head for wearing nail polish will so much as be snubbed on the Yale campus.

The only violence on college campuses these days occurs when people like David Horowitz, Michelle Malkin and me show up to give a speech in defense of America. Then we need bomb-sniffing dogs and a lecture hall lined with armed police. But a Talibanist goes about his day at Yale unmolested.

Conservatives may shrink from confrontation with howling, violent liberals, but as General "Buck" Turgidson in "Dr. Strangelove" informed the milquetoast president still hoping to avert a nuclear confrontation with the Russkies: "Well, Mr. President, I would say that General Ripper has already invalidated that policy."

Well, conservatives, I would say liberals have already invalidated your "Let's all just get along" policy.

The violence and threats of imprisonment have started. Now the only question is whether conservatives will choose victory.