C'mon, Mr. President. All due respect...and I really mean that ... but PAH-LEEEEZZ. This isn't the Army-Navy game with a seven-man officiating crew ... this is a bloody WAR!

I've been around the collegiate and professional sports environment for the better part of the last quarter-century. It's not unusual for the locker room mentality of any team to collectively utter "...Bring 'em on", with the machismo machoism that IS all-about sport.

But the last I checked, war is not sport! And inviting someone to try to take on some Marine corporal who's guarding an Iraqi intersection is not quite the same as baiting an opposing running back to try to maul over your team's linebacker.

In defense of the President ... or should I say, in Press Secretary Ari Fleischer's defense of the President's "Bring 'em on" statement ... it's said the President was merely expressing his confidence in the troops carrying out his military occupation role. But try telling that to the mom of the 20-year old US volunteer enlisted man who is scared to death trying to enforce undefined civilian rule in a hostile military occupation setting ... when the occupy-ees, for the most part, don't want him there, and don't give a damn about some press secretary's parsing.

The Washington Post says the bravado "Bring 'em on" comment provoked indignation from Democrats in Washington. Well, I don't care about the damn Democrats in Washington. I care about the indignation of a rogue band of Iraqis or Saddam Sympathists who have nothing better to do than take Dubya' up on his challenge with their rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rifles.

Didn't another Republican years ago quote an old West African proverb, saying "speak softly and carry a big stick"? Bet Teddy Roosevelt would agree the proverb fits quite appropriately here.

Let's don't dare people to come our way. I can't resist saying, 'It's just not prudent'. Leave that kind of leadership for the quarterback in the locker room ... not the one in the Oval Office.