A friend of mine, Dick Heatherton, suggested that, in spite of the stimulus package being shoved down our throats, conservatives have a couple of things to be happy about these days. One of them was airline pilot Sully Sullenberger, the man who orchestrated the miracle of the Hudson River. While I don’t know Sully’s politics, I agree with Heatherton that he is the personification of what we on the right like to think of as an American hero. He is a seemingly ordinary fellow, a modest, soft-spoken husband and father who, when circumstances demand it, is capable of performing extraordinary deeds. There are more Sullenbergers around than you might think, and they’re pretty easy to spot. You’ll usually find them standing right behind a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart or a Congressional Medal of Honor.

The other cause for glee is a motion picture called “Taken.” It’s a movie about an ex-CIA agent, Bryan Mills, who, for once, isn’t looking to start World War III, kill the president or pull off a multi-million dollar drug deal. All he’s trying to do is rescue his daughter from a group of white slavers who have kidnapped her. What makes it such a treat, aside from its action-packed 94 minutes, is that the bad guys aren’t the usual well-spoken Euro-trash or conservative politicians that Hollywood generally employs as arch villains. Instead, these guys are Albanian Muslims delivering young women to old sheikhs.

Along those same lines, I’ll share a letter to the editor I recently sent to the L.A. Times. “If Leon Panetta,” I wrote, “honestly believes that ‘Our greatest weapon is our moral authority,’ he should step aside and allow a rabbi, a priest or a minister, to head up the CIA. If, on the other hand, he believes, as I do, that the Agency’s primary mission is to keep America safe from Islamic terrorists, he should stop talking like a very naïve and fatuous social worker.”