In Time Poll, Giuliani And McCain Beat Democrats

A new poll on the Time magazine Web site shows that if a Presidential election were being held today, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani would beat Sen. Hillary Clinton 50% to 41% and Sen. Barack Obama 45% to 43%. Sen. John McCain would have the edge over Clinton, 48% to 42% and Obama 45 % to 44%.

Time's editors seem a little puzzled that at the same time, by a margin of 68% to 28%, American voters favor a phased withdrawal from Iraq and by 39% to 36% they would like to see Bush Administration Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales resign.

But when you think about it, it is not so surprising. Many voters are very impatient with the war, and don't think President Bush has done a good job of waging it, or the U.S. Government in general.

But even so, many voters feel instinctively that at a time when Islamic fundamentalist threats to the U.S. are manifest, when Iran is acting up again like the barbaric state it is, they might be safer with a Republican president than a Democrat.

If the Democrats in Congress persist in working so hard to lose the war in Iraq, I believe such feelings will only grow. They will certainly grow when voters see Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid say, as he did yesterday, that the Iraq war is not worth one more drop of American blood. That's another way of saying the 3,200 American soldiers who have died there have wasted their lives. I don't think, on reflection, that the American people are ready to buy that, or want to take the consequences of a withdrawal from Iraq or the Middle East.

Another thing that is interesting about the Time poll is that Obama is running better in the general election than Clinton. This despite the fact that other polls continue to show Obama trailing Clinton in the battle for the Democratic nomination.

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Of all the L.A. Times foreign correspondents, only the Arab-lining Tracy Wilkinson could be sent to Spain to cover a trial of Arab terrorists accused of responsibility for the terror attacks at Madrid railroad stations that killed 191 persons, and end up writing a front-page article suggesting that Muslims be permitted to conduct worship services at a cathedral in Cordoba that has been a Roman Catholic sanctuary for nearly 800 years.

Doesn't Wilkinson know that Cordoba was taken from the Muslims in 1236? No, they will not be permitted to take over Cordoba once again. And why is the L.A. Times allowing Wilkinson to hijack Page one again with her biases? Normally based in Rome, the next thing she might be suggesting is that the Vatican let Muslims take over the Sistine Chapel and replace Michelangelo's paintings with a portrait of Yasser Arafat.

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An Israeli reader writes this morning in the Jerusalem Post in response to the picture showing the captured British woman sailor in a Muslim head scarf:

"How symbolic a British woman with a black scarf on her head. The message to the West is quite clear. Iranians are here to put the scarf on all womanfolk, regardless of their nationality. Their design on males might be even more sinister -- a timely reminder to the West on what to expect."

Today, the Iranians forced their woman captive to write a letter calling for a British withdrawal from Iraq. As it did in the American hostage crisis a quarter century ago, the foul Mullah regime of crazed Muslims in Iran is behaving abominably. And now, just as then, the proper answer is to take action against them, not the ineffective action taken by Jimmy Carter, not some weak United Nations resolution, but real action to destroy their nuclear facilities and rid the country of the fanatics threatening the world.