Since late 2004, U.S. military missile-defense forces have been monitoring the skies, ready to move to a higher level of alert and try to shoot down any ballistic missile headed toward the U.S. "We've had the war fighters on the system for almost two years now, 24/7," Army Lieutenant General Larry Dodgen, head of the Army's space and missile defense command, told a Senate panel in April. "We have contingency capabilities that our nation can call on."

It's what Pentagon officials call "a thin line of defense" that's equal parts James Bond and Rube Goldberg. There are 11 interceptors ready to launch from silos in Alaska and California, cued to their targets by arrays of satellites and shipboard sensors all linked through a Colorado command center. The Pentagon wants 48 interceptors by 2011, including 10 in Europe — the Czech Republic and Poland are likely sites — oriented toward any threat from Iran. While the system generally isn't on full alert — meaning ready to fire its interceptors — Pentagon officials said last week the system had been cranked up to monitor, and if necessary, respond to, a possible North Korean launch headed toward the U.S.

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The U.S. Constitution requires that the president nominate individuals to serve as federal judges and that the U.S. Senate give its advice and consent on those nominees. This is indeed one of the most important duties of a senator. Yet some on the other side of the aisle have neglected this explicit and critical responsibility. They have dragged their feet -- and at times dug in their heels -- on confirming qualified judicial nominees. Now they threaten to filibuster Judge Terrence Boyle, a fine North Carolinian, distinguished jurist and dedicated public servant.

Boyle has served with distinction for more than two decades on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, handling more than 16,000 cases at the trial level with competence and integrity. He also has significant appellate experience, having repeatedly been designated to sit with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. In fact, he has authored more than 20 appellate opinions and participated in the decisions of approximately 200 cases argued before that court.

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No one can say they don't know a disaster is looming for Social Security and Medicare, the nation's two largest entitlement programs. The issue has been analyzed for decades. As time goes on, the problem gets worse.

America is getting older. Over the next five years, the first members of the baby boom generation will reach retirement age. In 1945, the ratio of workers to entitlement beneficiaries was 42-to-1. Today that ratio is 3-to-1. In another generation, it will be only 2-to-1.

The implications of the graying of America were driven home in the latest report from the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare programs. The Social Security trust fund will become insolvent in 2040. The Medicare trust fund will be exhausted in 2018.

While the crisis is understood, the political will to deal with it is nonexistent. The late House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill famously referred to Social Security as the third rail of American politics, because anyone foolhardy enough to mess with it would meet certain electoral death.

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Senate Democrats seemed not to mind that both proposals went down to defeat. What mattered, Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) suggested, was that Democrats had gone on record in favor of a "change of course" while Republicans had embraced "an open-ended commitment." Whether or not that political calculation survives Gen. Casey's proposal, it would have been a mistake for the Senate to endorse even the "soft" redeployment language in the Levin-Reed bill. Advisory or not, such a statement could have emboldened Iraqi insurgents.

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"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

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The GOP-controlled Senate on Thursday rejected Democratic calls to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by years' end, as the two parties sought to define their election-year positions on a war that has grown increasingly unpopular.

"Withdrawal is not an option. Surrender is not a solution," declared Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, who characterized Democrats as defeatists wanting to abandon Iraq before the mission is complete.

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The Senate's immigration reform proposal would change all of that. Section 240D would restrict local police to arresting aliens for criminal violations of immigration law only, not civil violations. The results would be disastrous.

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