What do the late Anna Nicole Smith and Russian premier Vladimir (Ras)Putin have in common?

Diversions. They are both diversions from the ongoing business of moving our country forward and winning the War on Terror. But there the comparison stops.

Smith was a temporary diversion whose ability to maintain the interest of the American public and the World Terrorist Media probably has already peaked and is in decline. Her gruesome, inglorious death is sad, but meaningful only in that it bluntly portrays the predictable and inevitable conclusion of the pathetic celebrity/druggie lifestyle.

Maybe somewhere in the world one person who is teetering on the brink of the drug scene will see the example she set for what it really is and draw back. Maybe. Otherwise, she is notable only for the mess she left behind - a son dead of drug abuse, and a daughter who will never know her mother, and who will be haunted for life by hordes of bickering pretenders to the throne of fatherhood, there for the millions she represents, not because of their sense of duty or responsibility.

Still, in a decade or less the memory of Anna Nicole Smith will be little more than an asterisk in a celebrity trivia game.

Rasputin on the other hand, is more than an annoyance, and he is not likely to go away any time soon. It is ironic that I was thinking about Rasputin the other day, wondering why we hadn't heard from him in a while, and wondering what he was up to. Two days later, up he pops, right on schedule, making vague, disturbing and wholly inaccurate comments about the USA, which seem to have no purpose other than to draw attention to him.

In the world of street fighters and professional wrestlers, Rasputin is engaged in a tag team match, alternating hits on the US and President Bush with the leaders of China, North Korea and Iran. They do this for very specific reasons; to weaken the US physically and mentally, and to keep us off guard by constantly diverting attention to one place while they are pulling something bad in another place.

Rasputin's recent criticism of Bush was obviously a ploy to draw attention away from Russia's continuing delivery of advanced technology and missile systems to Iran on the one hand, and Iran's use of advanced technology to build better roadside bombs to kill our troops in Iraq on the other.

But that is obvious. I would say at this point that we really need to take a hard look at China to see what those guys are up to.

Back in the 60s, when Vince McMahon was an up-and-comer and the WWE was just a hint of an idea, the professional wrestling arena was divided into good guys and bad guys.

Sometimes a good guy would cross over and become a bad guy which was sure to engage the crowds and keep everyone talking. That strategy still works today.
But usually, it was bad guy vs. good guy and everyone knew what to expect. Fred Blasie was a classic bad guy, as was Buddy Rogers, the one-time champion of all professional wrestling, not just the dirty kind. Rogers had a routine when he was getting beaten, in which after he would kneel in center ring, begging for mercy from the good guy.

Every time the good guy would look away at the crowd as if to determine what he should do, Rogers would hit him with a low blow, or in the case of tag teams, Rogers' partner would sneak up on the Good Guy and smack him over the head with a chair. Then Rogers would pounce on him, pin him and march off victorious.

The fun came on the third or fourth time Rogers wrestled the same opponent, and tried to pull the same trick, and suddenly, a light bulb would go off over Mr. Good Guy's head. The crowd would be yelling "look out, look out," and finally the Good Guy would look out, catch on to the trick, beat the stuffing out of the bad guys and throw one or two of them over the ropes for good measure.

OK, it's time for us to throw some bad guys over the ropes. Frankly, I think we already are. I keep seeing little drabs of information from Iraq that we are catching, killing and imprisoning bad guys in ever increasing numbers. And by all indications, we are just beginning to hit them.

The WTM isn't covering much of this, as usual, but it is happening. You can see it by all the diversions that are cropping up at once. China with its games in outer space, Rasputin running his mouth, North Korea with its on-again, off-again promise to abandon its nuclear arms ambitions, and the constant stream of white noise coming from Green Bean Almondine, the great and powerful ruler of Tehran.

But the loudest and most obnoxious of all is the puling from members of the Democratic majority in Congress, suddenly unable to get anything done, despite their crowing and bragging in November, who are suddenly, horribly afraid that we will actually win in Iraq. Underneath all that is happening, what we really have is a US Congress that is trying to pull off what it did in 1973-75 when it abandoned South Vietnam after that country had won a major victory over the communist north.

The members of Congress and the media past and present who were in on the action that ultimately caused the slaughter of some 4 million Southeast Asians are trying to pull off the same despicable exploit in Iraq. Since the Democrats and the turncoat Republicans in Congress already have shown that they have no confidence in the US Military, especially our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are in a no-win situation if our troops emerge victorious.

These people (Congress and the media) have already committed themselves to defeat. They have said so, they are planning it, and they are hoping for it, because they don't think it ultimately will affect them, and they will be happy as long as they can point their fingers at George Bush and blame him.

But our guys are winning, and there is still nearly two years to go until the next presidential election. America likes winners, not whining losers. The candidate who bets on the troops and makes sure they can do their jobs without restriction is the candidate who can carry the day in November 2008.

As for Anna Nicole Smith, may she rest in peace. She lived a hard life, with no discernible value to it, and all her millions still couldn't make her happy.

Regarding Rasputin, George Bush should be asking himself why the Mad Russian is running his mouth all of a sudden. It is a diversion for something. Maybe it's time to check out the Chinese premier and see if he is sneaking up on us with a chair in his hands.

If so I recommend grabbing the chair, throwing the Chinese out of the ring and smacking Rasputin upside the head. Vlad may well want to rethink this whole policy of arming the Iranian terrorists who are killing our troops.

Think about it Vlad, there probably are people in Washington who still remember when we armed the Afghanistan resistance against you in the 80s. They might even consider helping the Chechnyans if it gets you off our backs.

Think about it Vlad. It could happen.