Okay, I can post with more of a straight face. I've recovered from my first reaction, posted here. But only barely.

Wednesday’s issue of the Online Journal’s Best of the Web had an item that made reference to Really Real Security^TM, and commenting on Democratic Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid roll-out of the new party talking points to accompany their “tough” and “smart” approach:

What's telling about the Reid and Pelosi statements, though, is their sheer vanity. They boast about being "tough," "smart" and "strong." When someone tells you how tough, smart and strong he is, do you think, (1) Wow, he's really tough, smart and strong! or (2) If he's so tough, smart and strong, why does he have to keep telling me? Generally speaking, people who brag about their fine qualities come across as somewhat pathetic.

The Journal’s editors correctly conclude:

By bragging about how smart and strong they are, Reid and Pelosi only underscore that their actions show them to be insipid and weak.

Really. We’re going to be really tough, and really smart. When we have all the pieces of our plan in place, after we change the tone of debate in Congress (i.e., win control of the House), we will share with the American people how we can provide really Really Real Security^TM, and “restore our country’s position of international leadership.”

This is too much fun. How can any of us find the party of Really Real Security^TM at all unserious? Why, let’s read the Plan and grow in confidence of their “tough” and “smart” plans.

The title page:

Democrats’ Plan for Real Security will protect Americans and restore our country’s position of international leadership.

Hmmm. It seems to me that the US has led internationally for the better parts of 60 years, with few better examples of how aggressively we lead the world fighting radical Islamic Terrorism and Al Qaeda specifically around the world.

It would seem as if it is precisely our determination and willingness to exert effort on behalf of US National Interests – potentially at the expense of other nations’ and non-state actor interests – that creates the kind of resentment and animosity that so bothers Democrats. If not exactly a zero sum game, the world of preserving and advancing national interests internationally is pretty darn close.

“By all means, Lead,” they seem to be saying, “but can you do so in a way that makes everybody like us?” As any leader can tell you straight off, that’s impossible. In leading, you must brush past those weaker or more timid souls who dare not act. That’s not a recipe for appreciation.

And look at it from the outside in. If you are the other players and interests in the world, state and non-state, you have three choices. You can choose to fight against us, you can opt out, and remain impotent on the sidelines, or you can follow us. We shame the world with our impertinence, and our rejection in a diplomatically enshrined status quo. A status quo, by the way, which produces and preserves the most antidemocratic nations, and allows genocide and ethnic cleansing free rein.

And if not today, when was that period of history, the prevailing conditions of which would be our leadership internationally, as recognized by the world? (I suppose that is who would have to acknowledge our leadership, to satisfy Democratic criteria for such assessments.)

Is this not revisionist history at its worst? Were we loved and admired during the Clinton Years? Please, whether at the UN, or in dealings with supposed allies in NATO or recipients of vast US foreign aid, were there any potential snubs we did not receive? During Reagan? Perhaps more hated than now. Carter? That was the start of Al Qaeda’s certainty that we were weak, a paper tiger. Bush 41? Only within the confines of a laudable Coalition to evict Iraq from Kuwait, but look how the limits of that goodwill largely forced us to leave the job undone?