IN MY PREVIOUS blogging life, one of my favorite hobbies was poking fun at Frank Rich’s work. I used to imagine his inner monologue: “If I just compare the Bush administration to a movie one more time, those NASCAR-watching, Wal-Mart-shopping rubes will finally get it!” Then he would pound the keys and the spittle would fly.

Sometimes, and it’s scary to admit this, I feel a little like a mirror image of Frank Rich. How many different ways are there to say we have serious trouble coming at us?

WHEN ONE WRITES AS A BLOGGER, the biggest kick invariably comes from preaching to the choir. I question the honesty of any artist, be he a writer, rock-star or modern dance interpreter, who maintains differently. It’s a boost to the ego when you get a hundred letters saying how awesome you are. And in your audience, regardless of your position on the political spectrum or your medium, you usually have a lot more admirers than detractors in your own crowd. (An exception is of course made for Andrew Sullivan in this regard.)

The most important thing any conservative writer can do today is convince people who think that we’re perfectly safe that we’re not. Personally, I desperately want to reach those who think once Bush leaves office, the republic will be safe. I badly want to communicate with the vast majority of Americans who are benignly indifferent to politics and convince them of the peril we face. I doubt there’s a way of knowing how successful I am at these things - I’m pretty sure progress in such matters is measured in inches, not miles. Anyway, I’m trying.

At the risk of sounding self-important, this is serious stuff. America can’t win this war as a divided nation. We also can’t win if the majority of the country decides to sit out the debate and believes the comforting notions that the media sells so tenaciously. There’s a real question of whether or not we’ll be able to summon the national will necessary to deal with Iran and our other portfolio of existential challenges before we cross a point of no return.

That’s why I love articles like the Thomas Sowell piece that I linked to yesterday. I don’t know how many people who tend to disagree with his sentiments stumbled upon it, but amongst those who did, I’d wager a fair amount received food for thought.

But there are limits to what someone like Sowell can accomplish. Given the challenges of the day, his soapbox just isn’t big enough. And that’s where we’re going to have to rely on our leaders, and those who wish to be our leaders.

I know some of you are sick of me invoking the memory of Winston Churchill. Truth be told, I’m getting tired of doing it myself. But here the great man’s life is particularly illustrative.

While Europe drifted towards cataclysm, Churchill devoted his every effort to alerting his countrymen to the danger. A prolific writer, he wrote piece after piece sounding the alarm. He willingly marginalized himself politically. One thing every politician knows is that voters vote for good times and against bad times. A corollary to this rule is that voters are more likely to buy a purveyor of glad tidings than a doomsayer.

So Churchill spent his time in the wilderness, trying to awaken his people, doing so with only sporadic success. When England finally did come to her senses, it was too late to avoid disaster, but not too late to avert total disaster.

England paid the price because she didn’t see the light in time. Chamberlain was able to declare peace in his time and bask in the adulation of the British press and public.

There are some of our countrymen who are so far gone there’s faint hope of bringing them back to reality. Their initial and only response to the next 9/11 will be to offer a particularly vituperative anti-Bush tirade.

Fortunately, these people are a small though loud minority. Most of the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens remain up for grabs. Those of us who know what has to be done, all of us, have to be in the persuasion business. What we do is important; it’s important that we do it right.

Complaints? Compliments? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com