Sixty-eight years ago today, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II. In that historic conflict we defeated Japan and its German Nazi ally four years later at a cost of over 400,000 American lives.

Since before World War II however, we have faced a much more subtle foe - one that in many ways has been more deadly. The foe is an amorphous mass, variably called: "Liberal," "Progressive," "Leftist," "the Left," "the Radical Left," the "New Left," "Communist," "Neo-communist," "Socialist," "Marxist," "Neo-Marxist," even "Marxofascist."

Lest "liberals" take offense at being associated with communists, Marxists and socialists, it can only be said that Lenin referred to them as "useful idiots," i.e. those who knowingly or unknowingly assist communists in achieving communist objectives. For this reason communists share the same contempt for liberals that the rest of us do. We both know they are fools.

So forget liberals. Call the foe the "radical left". It has been the instigator of most of our foreign policy failures, including Vietnam and Korea; failures measured in millions of lives. Practically every public policy failure of the past century, from the healthcare crisis to our addled legal system, from crime-ridden ghettos to failing public schools, can be laid at the feet of the Left.