Buchanan is hitting on the right themes but fails to emphasize that we are still the world's best nation from a morality standpoint and therefore we have the "high ground" when going after the evil terrorists.
When Bush keeps referring to freedom, I too wonder sometimes about "freedom to do what....kill more babies in the womb?". Doesn't freedom really mean the ability or the environment to exercise a good moral choice?
Immorality is a national security risk.
Most powerful and the richest, yes. Most moral, how do you know, did you run some statistics? (unless you think that the power/wealth are same as virtue).
Anyway the key point is what Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote:
"If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
I will take Solzhenitsyn anytime before Frum and Perle.
IIRC the classical definition is that "Liberty is the freedom to do what is RIGHT."