As is his style, the author pulls no punches in expressing his opinions and as one could gather from the title, his comments are not flattering to the liberal intelligentsia.
The work attacks politically correctness as irrational and harmful to the national interest, which has become inwardly focused upon hedonistic pleasures exemplified by the homosexual agenda. O'Meara argues that American military professionals are son's of the enlightenment, who must test theory, technological concepts, as well as the limits of the known world if we are to maintain our leadership in the struggle to foster democracy and defend America from terrorism. His bottom line is we cannot allow the PC thought police to tie our hands, lest we run the real danger of becoming irrelevant as a modern military force. He makes his point through a series of essays, wherein he exposes the dumbing down of our once excellent academic system, our competitiveness, at the altar of political correctness.
The work is short only 127 pages consisting of twenty-two articles that the author intends to market to conservative journals, since as he states, the liberal media has expressed no interest in his work, his opinions.
He draws upon his West Point education when he states that one of the truly great achievements of that education was that it was not dominated by the hate-America group of socialists who preside at Yale and Harvard. He is happy that We escaped the PC blinders and the great socialist mind-set of the Liberal bleeding hearts.
OMearas assessment is most insightful in light of John Kerry's presidential campaign. Chapter 9: "A Travesty of our Times: The Curse of Yale describes the virulently anti-war climate that prevailed at Yale where Kerry earned his baccalaureate degree. In retrospect Kerry's anti-war escapades may be traceable to his indoctrination into PC thought at Yale, at the same time he was learning the art of self-aggrandizement.
The articles are well written and range from Surviving a Bad Command, wherein he castigates the Johnson/McNamara administration for lying to Congress about the readiness of the Army, and whose learned principles may be applied to modern day corporations, to Treachery of the Postmodern Age which addresses the opposition of the French and Germans to the war in Iraq.
In between he covers Militant Islam in Saudi Arabia, Moslem Resistance to Democracy, and The vast Conspiracy in America, among others, all on current topics being debated among Liberals, Democrats, Republicans and Conservatives.
Should a reader be of the conservative mindset, he/she will find the articles and opinions to their liking; on the other hand, those who subscribe to the liberal, left wing approach may not be as enthusiastic.
One could liken the book to a voice crying in the wilderness in light of the current political situation within these United States.
The reviewer, Thomas W. Leo, CPP, is a 1959 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
