War On Terror: U.S. warnings beginning in October of an imminent terror attack didn't save India. And if Democrats continue to doubt the value of aggressive terrorist surveillance, America can expect the same fate.

The world was stunned by the murder last week of nearly 200 people in India's financial capital, Mumbai, apparently by the Pakistan–based Lashkar–e–Taiba, which demands the end of Indian rule in Kashmir and Islamist rule throughout South Asia.

The Islamist terrorist attack on Mumbai sets the stage for another major war between India and Pakistan. To avoid it, statesmen will have to control inflamed public passion and manipulative politicians as well as confront the terrorists responsible for the heinous crime.

Diplomats know the act of mass murder spurs legitimate anger and rage. Mumbai's death toll reached 180 earlier this week, with some 240 people wounded. Most of the dead were Indians, but the list of victims included foreigners from at least 12 other countries, including the United States, Germany, China, Great Britain and Israel.

Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor and U.S. secretary of health and human services, once joked about the difference between being a governor and a Cabinet secretary: In Madison, action started when he made up his mind; in Washington, action started when he made up the mind of a 22–year–old White House staffer.

While a formal announcement is forthcoming, Tom Daschle has been offered and has accepted the job of secretary of health and human services by President–elect Obama. Daschle will also be the point man on health reform both for the transition and the administration — the health czar.

By picking the former majority leader of the Senate, the president–elect has shown that he understands the mistakes that bedeviled his predecessors.

President Bush tapped two governors to oversee the vast 65,000–employee department, but neither quite grew into the job, as illustrated by Thompson's joke.

With the Big Three facing serious financial troubles and General Motors on the verge of bankruptcy, the American taxpayers, via Congress, are being asked for a bailout. Instead, maybe it's time that GM faces reorganization through bankruptcy court, just like the thousands of other failing businesses that seek protection through Chapter 11.

The financial troubles of the Big Three have gotten increasingly serious lately, but the underlying problems have been getting worse for decades without being adequately addressed by management or the United Auto Workers. A taxpayer bailout would only reward irresponsible behavior.

Many of today's serious problems can be traced back to the 1970s, when the Big Three sold almost nine out of every 10 cars and the UAW had a monopoly on the labor supply of autoworkers. At that point, neither management nor labor faced any serious competition.

Without the strict discipline of market competition, both sides pursued short–run, self–interested goals in the 1970s that helped create the serious troubles they both face today.

There is a paradox at the heart of the proposed bailout of the auto industry. The rescue would have no chance of passing without the muscle of the Big Three's unionized work force. Yet you can't turn around without hearing someone trash autoworkers for the terrible crime of trying to earn a decent living.

The CEOs of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, having blown their earlier plea for help last month, delivered their revival plans to Congress on Tuesday and face their big test later in the week when they defend them.

Democratic congressional leaders desperately want to help an industry that accounts, directly or indirectly, for some 3 million to 5 million jobs.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were astonished at how unprepared these corporate titans proved to be the last time.

By flying into town on private jets and offering few answers to their congressional interlocutors, the big shots suggested they didn't understand that people begging for taxpayer money owe a certain deference to their potential benefactors. They must have thought they were running Citigroup.

If an athlete injures himself and suffers great pain, we'd recognize the shortsightedness of giving him painkillers to keep him going. The pain might be masked, but at the risk of greater injury later.

That's a good analogy for the inflationary policies now pursued by Washington. These policies may temporarily "stimulate the economy," but they also disguise and aggravate the underlying problems. We will all pay a serious price.

Policy makers have thrown caution to the wind. Twelve–digit dollar figures are tossed about casually. The other day, after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson changed course –– yet again –– and announced that the Federal Reserve would commit $800 billion more in "new loans and debt purchases," The New York Times reported, "Fed and Treasury officials made it clear that the sky was the limit."

The total federal commitment to date is over $7 trillion.

ATLANTA –– Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss handed the GOP a firewall against Democrats eager to flex their newfound political muscle in Washington, winning a bruising runoff battle Tuesday night that had captured the national limelight.

The savage terror attacks in Mumbai send three powerful messages to all Americans who are willing to pay attention:

1. The threat of Islamo–Nazi terror remains real and urgent, and Americans must not take our safety for granted. While both the public and the president–elect focus almost exclusively on our dire economic challenges, we tend to dismiss the possibility of new terrorist attacks on American soil. Exit polling after the presidential election showed that less than one–in–ten considered terrorism a serious issue for the candidates; the unheralded but significant success of the Bush administration in the seven years since 9/11 has lulled the American people into a false and foolish sense of security. The experience in Mumbai shows the way that a small handful of determined and well–trained fanatics can murder hundreds, while paralyzing the financial center of India for several days.

"You've got to be taught to hate and fear

You've got to be taught from year to year

It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear

You've got to be carefully taught." –– ("South Pacific," music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein)

DUBLIN –– Looking at the faces of two young men who were among the purveyors of death at Mumbai, India's Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, Chhattrapati Shivaji Terminus station and Leopold's restaurant, makes Westerners recoil, and not just in horror. We also question how anyone could be so insensitive to the value of human life. See song lyric above.

The killers –– these and others over many years –– use Islam as the foundation for their indoctrination, coupling it with the belief that Western society is weak and unwilling to do what is necessary to properly defend itself. They have literally bet their lives that the West will meet their force with something less commanding. And that is why they have –– and are –– infiltrating Britain, much of Western Europe, America (and India) through immigration and high birth rates.