A Defense of Missile Defense . . .

Then Heston spoke up, asking Inhofe, “Why do the Dem-ocrats seem so insistent on dismantling the military?” (This is a paranoid fantasy on par with the leftist charge that Republicans carried out a “coup” last year in November.)

“A simple yes or no,” one lady demanded of the senator. “Is Bill Clinton a traitor?” Rather pointed language regarding the president of the United States. Stunningly similar to the “fascist” label that so many on the left are willing to apply against their own heretics.

Fortunately, the world is a more complicated place than suggested by these rhetorical broad-brushes. George Bush and the Republicans now push Missile Defense, but it was Bill Clinton who followed in the steps of Ronald Reagan and signed the Missile Defense Act into existence, and it was Clinton who refused to kill off the whole boondoggle when he had a singular historic chance to do so. The GOP-dominated House rubber-stamped Arctic oil drilling last week. But 36 Democrats also voted for it — after being lobbied hard by organized labor. So much for Teamsters and Turtles Together.

Leaving the Peninsula breakfast room (after Heston correctly observed that the original Planet of the Apeswas better than Tim Burton’s botched remake), I was reassured to see the sun still shining over Beverly Hills, to see Asians disembarking from tourist buses and not armed troop carriers, to hear no air-raid sirens blazing, and to see no evidence of any uninvited projectiles winging my way. Confronted with this transitory serenity, I am only left to wonder how far you can stretch a $300 tax rebate at Emporio Armani.