The Pentagon's decision to permit women in combat is drawing strong reactions from advocates and critics, with few conflicted voices stepping to the fore. For something involving the capability, safety and efficacy of our armed forces, this is surprising.

Most importantly, this decision has not come suddenly, not out of the blue. It was reached collectively, because commanders were convinced – by further integration of women throughout the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this last decade — that they are fit for some combat operations. Though it is historic, because it makes the military more inclusive, it has come after decades in which many women have not only served and been held back from promotion, but have died as well.

In my last column I suggested that if she runs for president, which I believe is an 80 percent probability, Hillary Clinton would have a great chance to carry Texas and could well trigger a historical political realignment of Rooseveltian magnitude. I now predict that if Hillary choses not to run in 2016, which is certainly possible, liberals will begin a gigantic movement to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to run for president on a platform that will offer a reformist program of the magnitude that Franklin Roosevelt proposed and implemented.

If the obstructionist monkey remains on the back of Republicans in the grip of factions far to the right of mainstream America, the surrenderist monkey remains on the back of Democrats in Washington who will soon face a backlash from the Democratic base that they have no idea is coming. Filibuster reform is dead. Kaput. Bye-bye. Farewell. Done deal. Over and out. For those who think I am a shameless loyalist to Democratic leaders, whom I usually support, I would not try to sell this dead dog to a dead cat.

I have worked for high-level Democrats in both the Senate and House and know the rules inside out, and I could figure out how to obstruct and destroy any legislation under this latest "agreement" in two minutes after 10 beers during the last quarter of the Super Bowl.

“Maybe we will see all new people by 2016,” I wrote here on 4/17/12. “Call it Republicans vs. Jeffersonian conservatives, leaving the Democrats to dangle. Today Rand Paul hobbles the old school by demanding that $2 billion in foreign aid to Egypt be stripped. 2016 starts already … Rand Paul/Joe Miller 2016: Vote for grown-ups.”

But 2016 will not be a good time to be president. The economy will be in a shambles and there will inevitably be blood. It comes, said Charles Dickens, the moment economy sinks below equilibrium, which is now. And today we see first blood among my relatives (on both sides) in Northern Ireland. But don’t sweat the small stuff. China has not yet avenged itself for the horrors brought upon it by Japan in World War II. And it will, because karma, the soul force of the East, demands it. China, said Richard Nixon, remembers a thousand years.

Anniversaries are, strictly speaking, not necessary, but neither is art, friendship or many other of the most important things in life. We observe them by taking time out of the present to remember the past. It is a way of “marking time,” of measuring ourselves against the great and the bad who have foregone us.

Right now, the Library of Congress is exhibiting drafts of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in his own hand, in honor of its 150th anniversary. I recommend viewing these profound two pages of Lincoln’s cursive, which show us both the boldness and the vulnerability of the greatest of our leaders.

In reply to my brother Armstrong Williams, it is the right that is at war with American exceptionalism and President Obama who correctly quotes Scripture in favor of helping those in need and correctly quotes patriots in favor of an America in which we are all in this together.

It is not American exceptionalism to ask young people to die in war while asking the most wealthy to bathe in the luxury of tax cuts. It is not American exceptionalism to insult women with talk of legitimate rape, to insult capitalism with excuses for women being paid less than men, or to quote the church in support of cutting programs that help the poor, as the Republican nominee for vice president did before being reprimanded by many who wear the cloth.

Speaker John Boehner is spot-on in concluding that President's Obama ultimate goal is to annihilate the Republican Party. Obama has no intentions of reaching across the aisle and incorrectly assumes that the American people are so misinformed regarding the critical issues that they will gladly support his warped and diabolical agenda. When will the American people stop listening to Obama and his mainstream-media public-relations machine and finally weigh the consequences of his extreme liberal position? This president at every opportunity tries his best to dismantle the idea of American exceptionalism.

Briefly: The big surprise in the Israeli election was the sudden rise of Yair Lapid, a handsome and photogenic MSM celebrity “known for his chic, casual black clothing,” as The New York Times wrote, seemingly out of nowhere. But in politics, nothing comes out of nowhere and spontaneous awakenings like Lapid’s come in reaction to something else. Israel has recently been through a critical sequence: In October, Benjamin Netanyahu called for early elections to maximize his chances of reelection. Rockets fired from Gaza in mid-November attempted to intimidate the Israeli electorate. They did just the opposite and awakened a warrior instinct. Suddenly Israel then began to hear about the young Naftali Bennett, “the Zionist pin-up blazing a trail,” and his equally young colleague Ayelet Shaked, who rose to the Knesset in the Jewish Home Party with a determination to defend Israel.

I was not planning on writing any more pundit blogs this week, but I do have a brief comment about Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) outburst at the Benghazi hearing with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Paul suggesting he would have fired Clinton is like the Little League coach suggesting he would have fired Babe Ruth. I expect Hillary Clinton to run for and win the presidency, and I very much hope Paul runs against her. If he does, Hillary Rodham Clinton will pulverize Rand Paul into outer space.