If you believe that just a thin sliver of luck stands between us and further terrorist attacks in our major cities, and that only one political party can be trusted to be serious about national security, you have to believe that Rep. Foley's sexual folly could endanger all of us. 

Whether or not he was abused as a teenager is purely irrelevant: We are not turned into irresponsible zombies by childhood trauma. Rather than falling for Foley's trendy excuses, we need to think about the clear consequences.

Soon, the  suicide—murder cult of Ahmadinejad will have nukes; they might already have dirty bombs,  since all it takes is some radioactive material and a truck bomb, which they know how to make. In Asia, China wants to snatch Taiwan, as soon as the United States looks weak enough. Pakistan is in danger of falling to Taliban types, which is why President Musharraf just surrendered Waziristan province to them. This is a serious time for serious grown—ups. We therefore have to be extremely concerned about any scandal that can put dangerous fools like Al Gore or John Kerry into power.

Jimmy Carter became President after the Washington Post brought down Richard Nixon. Nixon was pretty awful in some ways, but he was completely serious about national security. Henry Kissinger was probably the most talented SecState of the 20th century, and it was Nixon who recruited him. After Nixon fell, so did Saigon —— courtesy of the New York Times' leaks of the Pentagon Papers —— followed by the Killing Fields of Pol Pot's Cambodia.

How many human beings died because our Left figured out exactly how to overthrow a Republican president? Surely at least hundreds of thousands. We can place those bloody corpses at the feet of our Left, which is why they are never mentioned in our mainstream media.

After Nixon fell, Jerry Ford didn't stand a chance in the next election. Smilin' Jimmy Carter got into the Oval Office instead.  Carter felt sure that Ayatollah Khomeini must be a fine, religious fellow, just a liberal Baptist with a Santa Claus beard ——  and much nicer than that nasty pro—American Shah.

So Jimmy the Fool allowed Khomeini to overthrow the Shah, leading some years later to one million deaths in the Iran—Iraq war. Had the Shah stayed in power, Saddam could never have waged war against a US—supported Iran. Meanwhile, Ayatollah Khomeini put together the first Islamofascist tyranny in the world, the model for all the others now incubating. The mullahs who succeeded him are now within a few years of getting nuclear weapons. That's what happens when you put a Left—wing conehead in charge, in times of great national danger.

So this is about more than sex. It is about unbelievably gross irresponsibility.  Foley's sexual pathology could bring our Deludocrats to power  —— our Peter Pan Party that's just never had to bother with growing up.

We know what they would do.

Domestically, the Dems would prosecute terrorists in Federal courts, making it legally mandatory to share sensitive intelligence with Islamofascist defense lawyers. The whole elaborate effort to gather better intelligence after 9/11 would immediately dry up, because spies don't want to get killed.

Any convicted terrorists would get appeal after appeal, using each occasion to make domestic and international propaganda against the United States. The ACLU would become the Terrorist Defense Fund, and it would be lauded in our dreadful media for protecting our rights. Any released terrorists would go back home and blow up more Americans. The media would explain it all away and then consign memory of the culpability to the Black Hole, just as they did with Pol Pot and Khomeini.

Internationally, a triumphant US Left would retreat from Iraq, handing Tehran  an enormous victory, and probably bringing Muqtada Al Sadr to power in Baghdad. Tehran would then extend its arc of control all the way from Lebanon to Syria, Iran and Iraq. The Saudis, Gulf States and Kuwait would be in mortal danger, along with the world's oil supply. Israel would also be in mortal peril, and reluctantly would be forced to bare its nuclear fangs. A real nuclear exchange might become more likely than at any time since Stalin.  We would see a new Persian Caliphate, as cruel and backwards as the Ottomans, but armed like the Soviet Union and much more dangerous. The Soviets never had a suicide ideology. Tehran does.

So this is serious stuff. If we had two responsible political parties, we could afford to throw one out. Unfortunately, we don't. Our Deludocrats are incapable of governing in a time of war. If you can honestly believe that 9/11 is not a possible portent of future disasters, you shouldn't even be elected President of your local Toastmaster's Club. So we're stuck —— like it or not —— with the best we have: Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and yes, George W. Bush. They are adults, with courage, humility and intelligence, as much as the leaders the United States was fortunate to have at the beginning of the Cold War —— people like Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, and George Marshall.

War leaders always make mistakes. Churchill made dozens of them. If our leaders have integrity, they will change their actions as soon as they realize their errors. That is the best we can expect in an imperfect world.  But they cannot be fools.

I fervently hope that the Democrats will come to their senses one of these days. They badly need to purge their party of incompetent hacks. But until they do, we are stuck with only one party of grown—ups. Fortunately we don't have a firing squad operating in back of the Capitol building to shoot Rep. Foley at dawn tomorrow morning, and we should not behave as if we wished we did.

All we can do therefore is put his gross irresponsibility into perspective. We haven't got a choice.

James Lewis is a frequent contributor to American Thinker.