On the heels of SOTU

I received this appropriate e-mail from my friend Cal.

During World War II -- the Japanese developed a way to demoralize the American forces.

Psychological warfare experts developed a message they felt would work.

They gave the script to their famous broadcaster "Tokyo Rose" and every day she would broadcast this same message packaged in different ways, hoping it would have a negative impact on American GI's morale.

What was that demoralizing message? It had three main points:

1. Your President is lying to you.

2. This war is illegal.

3. You cannot win the war.

Does this sound familiar?

Is it because Tokyo Hillary, Tokyo Harry, Tokyo John, Tokyo Teddy, Tokyo Nancy, have all picked up the same message and are broadcasting it on Tokyo CNN, Tokyo ABC, Tokyo CBS, Tokyo NBC, to our troops?

The only difference is that they claim to support our troops before they demoralize them.

Come to think of it, Tokyo Rose told the troops she was on their side, too!

Then today I see this article in the OpinionJournal from the Wall Street Journal Editorial page...

The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism...

We are not only on the way to talking ourselves into defeat in Iraq but into a diminished international status that may be harder to recover than the doom mob imagines. Self-criticism has its role, but profligate self-doubt can exact a price.

Our slide to a national nervous breakdown because of Iraq is not going unnoticed. Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, has been visiting across the U.S. this week...

"...I hope the American people understand the importance of not retreating and thinking the world's problems aren't theirs".

...On the "Charlie Rose Show" this month, former Army vice chief of staff Gen. Jack Keane, who supports the counterinsurgency plan...said in exasperation: "My God, this is the United States. We are the world's No. 1 superpower. This isn't about arrogance. This is about capability and applying ourselves to a problem that is at its essence a human problem."

...The mood of mass resignation spreading through the body politic is toxic. It is uncharacteristic of Americans under stress. Some might call it realism, but it looks closer to the fatalism of elderly Europe, overwhelmed and exhausted by its burdens, than to the American tradition.

Finally, there's this from The Washington Times/Inside the Beltway column...

A unique study conducted among a sample of Americans during President Bush's State of the Union address measured both positive and negative "emotional" responses.

Emotions of Republicans, Democrats and independents were measured using an Ayer Emotional Battery, "which captures the feelings of participants as they listen to or view advertising or communications," explains HCD Research and the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.

The results among party affiliation:

Republicans: Wishful, desirous, hopeful

Democrats: Disgusted, irritated, enraged, contemptuous

Independents: Not bored, attentive

It would not be an understatement to state that I am "Disgusted" and "Contemptuous" of Dummycrats!