I was back at the Hilton Wednesday afternoon for the grand opening – lots of rightfully pleased city officials.

I think Industrial Development Authority Chairman John Harrell, one of the project’s biggest backers from the get-go and one of Wednesday’s featured speakers – is probably the most entertaining public speakers in Suffolk. Great sense of humor, he.

While I enjoy Harrell, it wasn’t he who attracted me to the event. While I knew it was a longshot, somewhere in the back of my mind I was half-hoping Paris Hilton would show up, but alas, she did not. Grand opening events will continue through, April, I’m told, perhaps she’ll appear at one of the less formal, more stupid and slutty events.

I can’t seem to win for losing. I’ve been an opponent of the war in Iraq since it became apparent in 2002 that that is where we were headed.

I don’t care what the reasons were or what the outcome has been – it was an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation in clear violation of international law and America is supposed to be the good guy, or at least that’s what I was always taught.

In espousing that view, as well as my less than favorable opinion of the president, from time to time, I’ve been slammed by many who perceive me as some kind of latte-sipping, Volvo driving, baby killing, homo-hugging liberal. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m really much more conservative than my detractors would have you believe, certainly on economic issues and socially almost to the point of being prudish. I’m not anti-conservative, just anti-cronyism, anti-imperialism and, as a result of those tendencies, anti-Bush.

So it was against my better judgment on Sunday that I penned an editorial in the paper that really wasn’t in sync with my beliefs. I’ve seen many anti-war pundits of late giving credit to the president for what on the surface appears to be a democracy movement taking hold in the Middle East. So, in the interest of fairness, I figured I’d better give credit where credit is due.

Naturally, since then I’ve been slammed by the anti-war crowd in Suffolk – both of them — and further reading up on what’s actually going on the Middle East has convinced me that I was fully deserving of John M. Sharpe’s criticism in a letter to the editor in yesterday’s paper.

Things are not going well in the Middle East, regardless of what we are led to believe by the administration and mainstream media. Not only that, but the deficit continues to rise and foreign countries are divesting themselves of dollars at a faster and faster pace, something which does not bode well for our economic security, particularly those of us who are in variable rate mortgages and with the imminent passage of the bankruptcy bill — or debt-peonage bill – are destined to become indentured servants of the credit card companies..

Admittedly, I have a bit of a pessimistic view of things and hope that I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. Aggression and drunken-sailor spending will generally be OK in the short run, but history has proven that neither is a successful long-term strategy, either for a person or a nation.

Real conservatives and libertarians – who I think are the real silent majority in this country — need to join together and force our government to return to principles that made America great…and good.