The "bipartisan" Iraq panel has recommended that Iran and Syria can help stabilize Iraq. You know, the way Germany and Russia helped stabilize Poland in '39.

Now that Democrats have won the House, they can concentrate on losing the war. Despite all the phony conservative Democrats who got elected as gun-totin' hawks, the Democrats will uniformly vote to dismantle every aspect of the war on terrorism. They've started a runaway train and can't stop it now.

The Democratic base is at a fever pitch with visions of storm troopers listening to their phone calls and ruthlessly torturing innocent accountants at Guantanamo, where the average inmate has his own lawyer, his own prayer rug and is wondering what to do about that extra weight -- known as the "Gitmo 20" -- he's put on since being captured. They are oddly copacetic about actual storm troopers' daily harassment of actual citizens at airport security checkpoints. Liberals have no problem with government oppression as long as it's mandatory and applied equally to all Americans.

In a broadcast on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, NBC's Matt Lauer tried to nail down the Manhattan portion of his audience by aggressively questioning President Bush about the possible use of "waterboarding" against terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Lauer said ominously, "It's been reported that with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he was what they call 'waterboarded.'"

At NBC, they apparently expected most Americans to react to this fact by exclaiming: They did WHAT to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Wait -- are you sure about that? OK, that's it. I will never vote Republican again!

President Bush refused to discuss techniques used on terrorists, saying, "We don't want the enemy to adjust." But Americans "need to know," he said, "we're using techniques within the law to protect them."

While normal people would be happy if we were using cattle prods on the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Lauer was testy about the possible use of waterboarding against him. "I don't want to let this 'within the law' issue slip," he said.

"I mean, if, in fact, there was waterboarding used with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- and for the viewers, that's basically you strap someone to a board, and you make them feel as if they're going to drown. You put them under water. If that was legal and within the law, why couldn't you do it at Guantanamo? Why'd you have to go to a secret location around the world?"

In point of fact, we strap people to wooden boards and make them feel like they're drowning all the time in this country. Mostly at theme parks like Six Flags.

Bush again said he wasn't going to talk about techniques. But Lauer's relentless grilling was getting to him. If he'd been at Gitmo, at this point Bush would have demanded a lawyer, another copy of the Quran and a couple of chocolate eclairs.

Lauer continued to pester the president, demanding to know whether these "alternative techniques you use ... if they are used, are you at all concerned that at some point, even if you get results, there's a blurring the lines of -- between ourselves and the people we're trying to protect us against?"

Hey, I forget: When did Khalid Sheikh Mohammed use aggressive interrogation techniques against a known mass murderer in an effort to thwart another 9/11-style attack on thousands of innocent civilians?

There are few better examples of how out of touch liberals are. They go right to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and expect Americans to be outraged that he may have been waterboarded.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks and is believed to have played a role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Bali nightclub bombings, the filmed beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, a thwarted 2002 attack on a bank tower in Los Angeles, and Operation Bojinka, a plot to blow up 11 commercial airliners simultaneously. Oh, and he took home the coveted "world's craziest terrorist" prize at al-Qaida's end-of-season office party last year.

I think waterboarding should be a reward for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: OK, you've been good, Mohammed, we're only going to waterboard you today. Let's get you out of those cold electrodes and onto a nice, warm waterboard, OK?

Now that they're our new best friends, how about we turn to Iran and Syria for help on our interrogation techniques?