Your line "town hall outbursts and pistol-packing protesters" mischaracterizes the protesters, most of whom were orderly and very few of which carried guns and did so legally. If you want a contrast, check the reports of protesters at the G20 meetings, but please quit trying to portray the people who spoke back to politicians over trillion dollar deficits and nationalization of health care as violent, or Un-American. They're just ordinary people who've become alarmed by the attitude in Washington that they're just sheep who can be herded in whatever direction the left wants and sheared as needed to pay the bills.

If they really want to end this war, they should support it more. Their opposition only heartens the terrorists and the insurgents. If they voted for full support, rallied behind our troops and quit giving the dead-enders hope, I think it would be over sooner. But they're not really interested in that as much as they are in reliving their past exploit of cutting the legs out from a friendly government, a la South Vietnam. How that travesty is anything to be proud of I don't know, but it seems to be the last time the left really accomplished anything.

The Democrats have controlled the House most of my life. When they got shut out in 2000, 2002 and 2004 they couldn't cope. They seemed to think they had a Constitutional right to obstruct. The viciousness of their and the media attacks on Bush were unlike anything I've ever seen. If the results this year had gone the other way, we'd be in the midst of recounts, lawsuits and charges that the Republicans stole the election. As far as I'm concerned, the left and the press have forfeited any claim to comity or civility. Republicans will not repay them in kind, because that's just a bad way to run the government, but the Dems have shown they are not serious about putting an end to terrorism, so the Rs will be back.