As I look around the political landscape and survey the situation, one thing leaps out at me from the landscape. It is something that causes me a great deal of concern and should concern all of us. The problem that I am seeing is the increasing abdication of responsibility in our so-called leaders, here and abroad.

Look back at the situation in Israel with Hezbollah. In that situation the government of Ehud Olmert responded to constant attacks on their northern towns by Hezbollah fighters based in southern Lebanon. An Israeli incursion was launched, fighting commenced, and the war was on...then came the abdication. The Israeli government abdicated their responsibility to finish the war that was brought to them by terrorists and gave the United States and United Nations effective control of their foreign affairs. By allowing the U.N. and the U.S. to force a peace on them that was seen as an Israeli defeat by Hezbollah, the Olmert government gave the power to decide when and how vigorously the Israelis would defend their homeland from attack. The Israeli people are less secure, less safe, and less feared by their enemies due to that abdication by the Olmert government.

Here at home, we have seen the U.S. Congress abdicate its authority to non elected, unaccountable "bipartisan" commissions. First, we had the supposedly bipartisan 9/11 Commission that was tasked with investigating the 9/11 attack and formulating some plans to prevent further attacks. On the surface the idea sounded great, but in practice it was a farce.

The 9/11 Commission was bipartisan only in the fact that it had both Republicans and Democrats on the Commission. The Commission had its moderate Republican members like Thomas Kean, it had someone that should have been a witness in Jamie Gorelick, and it had a Democrat hack extraordinaire in Richard Ben-Veniste, all pretending to want to find the truth about 9/11. In truth, Kean and his bunch wanted to avoid any confrontation with the Democrats and the media, Gorelick wanted to bury her key role in blocking intelligence sharing by the F.B.I. and C.I.A., and Richard Ben-Veniste simply wanted to get Bush.

From this "bipartisan" group we had a slew of recommendations that the Congress rushed to embrace and enshrine into law. They gave us the Department of Homeland Security, new security guidelines, and the brand new idea that intelligence agencies just might need to share information. The question is, why was the Congress not willing to come up their own ideas, or launch their own investigations? It is not for unelected commissions to dream up new government regulations and agencies...I thought that was why we elected members of Congress!

Now we have the "bipartisan" Iraq Study Group that it seems that the White House and Congress are waiting to tell them what to do about Operation Iraqi Freedom. This group is headed by James Baker, former Secretary of State for Bush 41 and includes such luminaries as former SCOTUS Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and Democrat power broker Vernon Jordan. The one thing that all three of these people seem to have in common is an abiding disapproval of the entire war effort in Iraq! James Baker was a vocal critic of the war effort, Justice O'Connor actively stuck her nose into the debate from her perch at the Court, and Vernon Jordan can be counted on to oppose the war by virtue of his close ties with the Clinton family.

It is to this group that the White House and the Congress are willing to abdicate their Constitutionally mandated responsibility to. It is to this group that President Bush will listen, and probably allow to shape his strategy in Iraq going forward. The question is: Why? And by what authority does James Baker get to control and influence U.S. foreign policy?

By abdicating their authority to this group, our government will be putting our fate in the hands of people that cannot be held accountable by us, the citizens. It seems that our government "leaders" are so afraid of making tough decisions, or decisions that may be unpopular that they are willing to outsource the job of governing to special "bipartisan" commissions. We, the people don't have much say in the matter right now...the President will do as he will. But this should be a wake up call to draw the attention of the people to the type of "leadership" that we have in the seats of power right now. This is a troubling turn of events and should be watched closely as it will affect us for years down the road.

This should also spur us, the conservative base, to get ourselves back in the game. There is an election coming in just a couple of years where we will have the chance to take our government back. And when we get out to the primaries, and then the general election, we have to nominate and elect real conservative leaders. And we must punish and dismiss the people that are selling us out daily. We must rid ourselves of the Abdicators among us.