A long-standing joke at election time is that if someone were to run under the name "None of the above," that candidate would win. This year, the Democrats are running as "None of the above" and polls show that they may well win the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate.

Can we afford to have Congress controlled by people who refuse to discuss their own record or agenda, at a time when a nuclear Iran and a nuclear North Korea loom over our future and over the future of our children and grandchildren?

Some clever people say that Democrats will have two years in which to discredit themselves in Congress before the 2008 elections. But clever people have led many nations into catastrophes. Is this the time to experiment with "None of the above"?

Who are the Democrats who will take over key Congressional committees affecting the destiny of this nation if their party wins the House of Representatives?

Do we really want Congressman Alcee L. Hastings, who was impeached as a federal judge and removed from the bench due to charges of accepting bribes, put in charge of a committee handling top secret national intelligence?

Do we really want far-left Congressman Dennis Kucinich to be chairman of the subcommittee on national security?

This is the same Dennis Kucinich who once introduced a bill "to abolish all nuclear weapons," who has refused to condemn Hezbollah terrorists, calling instead for us to have a "recognition that connects us to a common humanity and from that draw a flicker of hope to enkindle the warm glow of peace." Poetic but dumb.

Do we really want John Conyers to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, when he has already indicated that he wants to use that position to impeach the President -- which is to say, to absorb endless hours of White House staff time answering his charges instead of spending those hours dealing with one of the most dangerous international situations ever faced by this nation?

Then there is Congressman Charles Rangel, who has favored tax increases time and again and bitterly denounced tax reductions equally as often and as loudly. He would become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, in charge of tax legislation, if the Democrats win control of the House of Representatives. Continued...