While I agree with all he says about the general problem with political correctness some of his specifics are not necessarily the right way to go.

Acknowledge nothing about any specific incident. Merely repeat that our government does not aim at civilian targets.

I only agree with this if we are going out of our way to acknowledge ever mistake. To acknowledge an occasional mistake give more credibility to the premise that the Taliban is lying most of the time.

He should be placed in a Pentagon backroom, never again to speak to the press, who love to latch on to a case of American bad luck or failure.

Stufflebeem was given an opportunity to clarify that remark and he admitted that his choice of words was poor. What he meant to say was he is surprised that the Taliban has failed to see the inevidability of their defeat. I might agree with Gross on this one.

The third politically correct failure is our insistence on telling the enemy that we are sorry about killing him and that we will try to respect his religion and holidays. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who once said of the Iraqis, that "we'll cut them off and then kill them," has apparently found political correctness, acknowledging "sensitivity" to the enemy's Ramadan holiday, which lasts for a month. Helping the Taliban to celebrate their holiday would virtually destroy our military campaign.

We have stated adamently that we will not stop for Ramadan. As long as we stand by that, I see no harm in acknowledging the existence of the holiday.

The fourth politically correct activity is the temptation to put down our own allies as not being pure enough. The American press has begun to talk about the Northern Alliance as being too weak and even as "bad guys," injuring our coalition. They are "pure" enough to hate and fight the Taliban, which makes them freedom fighters in any lexicon.

Recognizing that certain elements of the NA may be so unacceptable that they would further complicate the situation and stating the fact that they have been doing more hating and a lot less fighting doesn't fall into the area of PC imo.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has been doing a good job within the confines of the present law, has also fallen into the politically correct trap. Given new authority last week, he now states that "if they overstay their visas by even one day," he'll arrest them. Does that mean that if their visas are not overdue, which was the case in nine of the Saudi killers, that's it's OK to plan and execute terrorism here?

Ashcroft mentioned that thing but did not limit what he might or might not do under the new law.

The villain here is the comment, made to me regularly by government personnel, that to tighten our borders to Middle Easterners would be "racial profiling." This is an incorrect use of a phrase used to discriminate falsely against our own people. But in the case of aliens, especially potential enemy aliens, the use of word "racial profiling" to describe security matters is a self-defeating, politically correct attitude.

I can't disagree with that.

I believe that political correctness has been mortally wounded but refuses to die gracefully.