But last month, by ignoring the written and spoken record, Kennedy trashed the truth in attacking President Bush on the issue of Iraq. On Sept. 18, the senator said: ''There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. The whole thing was a fraud.'' Later he said, ''The tragedy is that our troops are paying with their lives because their commander in chief let them down.''

Only one member of Congress called Kennedy's statement what it was. ''Ted Kennedy has accused the president of treason,'' said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), ''and no Democratic leader has had the guts to speak their mind about the accusation.''

When McCarthy said communist infiltrators had permeated the FDR and Truman administrations, his charge was regarded as dirty pool, but subsequent disclosures of the Venona documents -- secret USSR cables dating back to the 1940s that our government intercepted -- show beyond a shadow of doubt the existence of a network of spies.

McCarthy was assailed and later censured because his enemies declared he embroidered the truth. But while the essence of what he maintained was later justified by Venona, ''he added little to our knowledge'' but ''did force public discussion of the issue -- something that the left did not appreciate,'' wrote two espionage experts, Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel in The Venona Secrets.

McCarthy was pilloried; not so Kennedy. The fact that no major Democratic candidate for president, including Howard Dean, Bush's most caustic critic, endorses the Kennedy statement, tells how far off-base Kennedy is. The fact that liberals fear to question him tells much about their lack of courage. And that no Republican senator has lashed back at him is an outrage.

Kennedy ignored the written record. Bush said clearly there was no imminent threat but made his case despite it. ''Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent,'' he said Jan. 28. ''Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late.''

In 50 years of writing about, and participating in, politics, I have not seen the equal of what Kennedy said about Bush.

One can disagree with the pretext of the war in Iraq; I questioned it but now that we're involved, support victory there and believe this president has shown courage and has taken great risks with his own popularity to achieve what is right. Kennedy, by insisting that Bush manufactured a crisis and pursued it for partisan ends, has trespassed even the minimum standards of public debate. If he has evidence that Bush invented the war, he should produce it. If he has not -- and clearly he has not -- Kennedy should be the subject of a Senate investigation and should be censured, if not expelled.

Censure all but ended McCarthy's career. No probe or censure is likely for Kennedy -- but his derogatory statement stands in contrast to the example of his brother.

''Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans,'' I heard JFK say on a cold inaugural afternoon. How sad that by implying the president is a traitor, Edward Kennedy has allowed his torch to fall.

Despite the tremendous sacrifice of our troops in Korea and the present-day tensions rooted in its outcome, the Korean War regrettably seems distant in America’s collective memory -- in part, because the conflict has never formally ended and its place in history falls between two even bloodier conflicts, World War II and Vietnam. Consequently, the Korean War has been called the "Forgotten War." Thousands of living veterans, however, will never forget the sights and sounds of Korea, the blood-soaked battlefields, or their fallen and wounded friends. For them, the Korean War lives on. Fifty years after the armistice, their memories are our most personal link to an increasingly distant but defining past.

That is why I am writing to encourage all Korean War veterans living in Illinois to share their stories with future generations of Americans through a program run by the Library of Congress. The Veterans History Project gives Korean War veterans the opportunity to help create a living memorial to their sacrifice by recording their experiences for permanent preservation at the Library of Congress.

There are a few practical things citizens across Illinois can do to help ensure Korean War veterans receive the honor they deserve. Veterans and veterans organizations can help by recording wartime memories, contributing diaries, letters, and photographs to the Library of Congress. Individuals with friends and family who fought in Korea can interview their loved ones, record their oral histories, and collect their memoirs, letters, and photographs for permanent preservation. Local libraries, historical societies, schools, and civic organizations can work with the Veterans History Project to set aside a day to interview and honor Korean War veterans.

The window is closing fast for recording first-hand accounts from the Korean War. If we are to show our Korean War veterans the admiration, respect, and appreciation they deserve, we should work while we can to learn their individual stories. Together, we can help preserve the memories of our brave veterans for generations to come.

(Click on the link below for more information on how you can participate in the Veterans History Project.)

Early primary voters are more intensely liberal than even most self-identified Democrats, and as Democratic presidential contenders appeal to this active minority within their shrinking party, they adopt policies further and further outside the political mainstream.

To distract from this troublesome dynamic, Democrat House leaders have declared a four-week offensive against Republican policies and Senate leaders have announced they will step up their abuse of the filibuster, to an unprecedented level of obstructionism.

Over the next four weeks, they will provide us a wonderful opportunity to illuminate the clarity between our positive policies and leadership versus their protest and pessimism.

Highlight the choices that are becoming increasingly clear on:

1. Jobs. Every Democrat running for President is for raising taxes. They are unanimously committed to higher taxes on small businesses, the very engine of job creation in America. Just as our economy is improving and jobs are being created, Democrats threaten to slow growth and return us to recession with tax increases.

2. National security. One high-ranking Al Qaeda official said after the attacks of September 11 that it was "the beginning of the end of America." He didn't say September 11 was the beginning of the end of Russia, France or the United Nations, he said it was the beginning of the end of America.

He couldn't have been more wrong, but it's our prerogative to make sure he's wrong--with or without the unanimous international consent required by the President's critics. We welcome the more than 30 countries engaged in the reconstruction of Iraq and appreciate the more than 40 countries that participated in its liberation, but we cannot put our fate in the hands of other countries.

Last week a significant minority, including leading Democrats, moved to the left of Syria and France by opposing funding for troops and reconstruction in Iraq. Some Democrats seem to think we would be better off had an international coalition not removed Saddam Hussein from power.

3. Homeland security. When it comes to winning the War Against Terror, the President's critics are adopting a policy that will make us more vulnerable in a dangerous world. Specifically, they now reject the policy of preemptive self-defense and would return us to a policy of reacting to terrorism in its aftermath.

The bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, Khobar Towers, our embassies in East Africa, and the USS Cole were treated as criminal matters instead of the terrorist acts they were. After September 11, President Bush made clear that we will no longer simply respond to terrorist acts, but will confront gathering threats before they become certain tragedies. If we do not fight the war against terror in places like Baghdad and Kabul, we are more likely to have it fought in places like Boston and Kansas.

4. Who shares our values. The US Congress voted overwhelmingly to end the heinous procedure known as partial-birth abortion, which the late Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan rightly likened to "infanticide."

However, leaders of the other party, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senators Kennedy and Clinton, and presidential aspirants John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman voted with the extreme of their party, and John Edwards and Dick Gephardt couldn't make time for the vote.

Highlight the party of pessimism. NYT columnist David Brooks recently described one wing of the Democratic Party as "Pelosi Democrats." Rather than offering solutions, Pelosi Democrats determine policy based on a simple formula: If President Bush is for it, they're against it. As they rail against Republicans during their four-week offensive, note that they will be offering no solutions of their own.

Highlight the party of protest. Senate Democrats continue their stubborn obstruction of important legislation to create jobs (i.e., class action reform last week, perhaps energy policy next) and qualified judicial nominees not tolerated by the extreme elements they increasingly represent. They lost control of the Senate in 2002 after pursuing the same approach they pursue now, and we are likely to gain seats next year as a result.

Highlight the party of political hate speech. The Presidential candidates have now called President Bush a "miserable failure," a "liar," compared him to a "gang leader" and to Saddam Hussein himself. At one point in a recent debate, Howard Dean counseled his fellow candidates, "Let's remember, George W. Bush is the enemy here." We are a nation at war, and they think the President of the United States is "the enemy."

Americans instinctively know that anyone who's willing to demean the presidency in order to gain it is not worthy of having it entrusted to him.

Internal polling continues to show the American people consider the President as favorably today on questions of leadership, honesty and trustworthiness as they did at the beginning of the year. And the American people trust the President more than Democrats to handle the economy, foreign policy and national security. Their protests, pessimism and political hate speech are not working.

==>Thomas Jefferson