[This was originally in To The Point for July 4, 2004. It needed only a slight updating for 2006.  We at To The Point wish all of you an exceedingly happy Fourth of July.]

July 4th is Freedom's Birthday. My suggestion is, amidst the fireworks and barbeques and flag-waving fun - all of which are great - that you take the time to feel good about America.

Put aside your worries and concerns, your frustrations and fears about what's wrong with America. For one day, forget the negative - put it all in a zip-lock bag, hide it in the back of the freezer, and pretend it doesn't exist.

One reason is that, for all your worries about America's culture and morality, you and all your fellow conservatives can feel good about your country. Liberals can't. One of the defining characteristics of leftie-liberals is an inability to feel truly proud of their country - proud to the bone.

You cannot be a liberal without feeling apologetic and embarrassed over being an American. You cannot be a conservative without lacking any such embarrassment or compulsion to apologize at all.

Being an American is simply the coolest thing on earth.

WASHINGTON -President Obama used his weekly radio address on Saturday to reassure the American people that he has "played no role whatsoever" in the U.S. government over the past four years.

"Right now, many of you are angry at the government, and no one is angrier than I am," he said. "Quite frankly, I am glad that I have had no involvement in such an organization."

The President's outrage only increased, he said, when he "recently became aware of a part of that government called the Department of Justice."

"The more I learn about the activities of these individuals, the more certain I am that I would not want to be associated with them," he said. "They sound like bad news."

"It's unbelievable," said an unemployed waitress. "How can Obama be leading in the polls and likely to win enough electoral votes for a second term despite the worst economic performance by any President in the past 100 years?"

"It's downright frightening," said A small business owner. "What is the real plan that Obama and the Democrats have for their ‘transformation of America' and, more importantly, how are they going to achieve that plan and how will it affect my business and my family?"

The answers to these critical questions is clear. There is enough evidence, both direct and circumstantial, to provide reasonable answers. Yet, the reasons for Obama's showing in the polls and his transforming plan are kept masked by a media and a public who is seduced by the silver-tongued politician.

Obama's ability to mask his intentions produces an almost opium-like effect. That mask, however, will be removed once re-elected and America will, more clearly than ever, see and feel the impacts of the ‘plan'.  Here is that unbelievable, frightening plan to transform America.

Today's (2/17) Wall Street Journal has an op-ed by a CIA intelligence officer, Guillermo Christensen, entitled Un-Intelligence.  The article exposes the self-serving attack on President Bush and the War in Iraq by a fellow CIA officer named Paul Pillar in the current issue of Foreign Affairs.

Pillar is now being lionized by the left for his anti-Bush screed - but you first learned about him here at To The Point in October 2004.

Porter At The Pass revealed that Paul Pillar and his left wing cabal at the CIA, which I named The Pillar Gang, was conducting a covert campaign of leaks and disclosures to damage George Bush's chances of re-election and help John Kerry's.

As explained in "Porter At The Pass":