Likud must be perceived as the party of commonsense ideas and clear-minded policies that inspire, attract and convince the Israeli public to support it.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Netanyahu's grand coalition

And increasingly, businesses are making the judgment that the over -- and these are clear-eyed, bottom-line-minded businessmen and businesswomen who are making the judgment that it is a good time to locate those factories and jobs here in the United States.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

It is already clear that the liberal-minded parties that have been the focus of much Western media attention are not doing well as the competition hots up.

BBC: Egypt's Islamists mobilising mass support

And the tabloids still tackle the questions that higher-minded journalists steer clear of in their writing but then spend most of the week discussing at lunch.

ECONOMIST: The tabloid press

"Although Kohl, Andreotti, and Mitterand have passionately argued that heavy infusions of Western cash are needed to save perestroika and strengthen the reform process, it is increasingly clear that a much less high-minded and cynical impetus is at work: The actual recipients of the bulk of these taxpayer funds are companies of the re respective lending governments, " said Roger W. Robinson, Jr.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center for Security Policy | ��Trumping�� For Dollars: Moscow Plays Favorites In Payments To Western Creditors

Yet as Europe's immediate response to the Dubai operation makes clear, Europe itself has abandoned the sober-minded pursuit of its own interests, in favor of cowardly, feckless, self-defeating rhetoric.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: When rhetoric rules the roost

In an era when many sports teams employ modern-minded psychologists to help the players clear their mental pathways, others are clinging to simpler methods.

WSJ: Ohio State, Butler, Wisconsin: The New Thing in College Basketball: Embracing the Old School