Imagine the dreaded knock at your door. Uniformed military at your threshold, one with a crucifix lapel pin, or a Star of David pin, signifying chaplain. They come to your threshold with horrific news: You have lost a son or daughter on the front lines in the war on terrorism.

You’re devastated. Life will never be the same. You ponder the cosmic, eternal questions, starting with Why? and then Why me?

Your “kid” — always, in your heart, your grown child — has paid the ultimate price to preserve our freedoms, and to make possible freedoms to others, such as the chance to vote, go to school, to speak without fear.

After a while you begin to heal a little inside. In your sorrow you recall “kid’s” life, why he served, what he did at the end. Call this stage in Kubler-Ross’s monumental study of grief — necessary, natural and therapeutic.

One fine day you’re videotaped for a modest, soft-spoken TV spot telling of your sacrifice. Taping takes only minutes. It might lessen the grief load. Why not?

Unexpectedly, out of the blue, folks you don’t know emerge from the shadows, wanting to shut you up, ban “your” TV spot. How dare them? And this in America, land of the free.

The interloper, turns out, is a political party, howling foul. Its chairman brands the TV spot you’ve made as “propaganda.”

Another shocker: Party chairman guy declares these TV ads featuring decorated vets and families hit by heartbreak, to be “un-American.” And, "lies." Can you imagine it? Well, no. I can’t. Such absurdity, hinting of 50s McCarthyism, boggles the mind.

Two TV spots titled “Midwest Heroes” now air in Minnesota, in a test run. Both are 60-second issue ads. Neither mention a candidate or party. They salute our vets, their mission going after terrorists. Yes, they recall 9/11. One would think all parties might salute the ads. You’d be wrong.

One spot highlights vets talking about experiences in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The other ad permits parents of those KIA in Iraq, their say. Powerful, moving. A real and present danger for one political party?

So it appears. The wannabe censor of these non-partisan, patriotic TV spots are Democrats of my native state, Minnesota. They make up the once-noble Democratic Farmer Labor Party there — “DFL” to us natives. Dems are called DFLers in this “progressive” party of HHH and Walter Mondale.

Ads they seek to shut down are sponsored by Progress for America, an openly conservative advocacy group. Curious? See the TV ads for yourself, at www.progressforamerica.com . And donate if you like.

State DFL Chairman Brian Melendez, a lawyer who really should know better, deals the despicable “un-American” card. His other low-blow cheap shot is labeling the spots as “untruthful.” So much for respect for our military, eh? Sort of blows the cover.

Question for the Chairman: Does the DFL have, at long last, no decency, sir? Do Americans’ wartime sacrifices mean so little, so as to invoke invidious McCarthy-recalling criticism? Do you REALLY believe attacks on “Gold Star” moms and our military will win you votes, sir? Were you born yesterday, sir?

Melendez urges TV stations not to air the spots. No threats are made, or implied, for not bowing down to his DFL. One station did bend over. (Campaign ads, later on?) Twin Cities’ KSTP-TV would not allow one ad to sully its pristine airwaves.

KSTP-TV’s General Manager Rob Hubbard objected to the offhand disapproval of MSM’s war coverage, a national issue. “We aren’t about let them take a shot at us,” Hubbard huffed, quite validating the TV spot’s criticism. Unintended irony arises sometimes from clueless media types. Happens all the time in D.C.

Local MSM does not much touch the issue, but the reliable, award-winning, mostly Minnesota-based blog, Power Line does. Sample:

In Minnesota, the mask has fallen from the Democratic Party. It has condemned the message of Lt. Col. Bob Stephenson [ad subject] and the other veterans supporting the mission in Iraq, as "un-American." Yet it has gone beyond its outrageous condemnation of the ads. It has actually sought to suppress the message of the [TV spots'] featured war veterans and Gold Star Families… .

In an email to party faithful, DFL Associate Director Donna Cassutt tries to make a case for mugging — er, the muzzling the TV spots:

The ads erroneously make a connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorists attacks and suggest that the war in Iraq will prevent an attack by Al Queda in America. . .

The 9/11 Commission findings clearly state that there was no connection [sic] between Iraq and the Al Queda terrorists attacks on 9/11 . . .

Something’s missing. Got it? The 9/11 Commission’s initial findings clearly stated “no operational connection,” but plenty of other links. Catch the dropped adjective in Ms. Cassutt's message to party loyalists? Folks, this is the stuff of partisan spin, known as slanting when done by the MSM. So be alert!

Informal links between Saddam’s regime and Al-Qaeda leaders are well-established, if little reported. Too hot? Saddam offered shelter to, and training for, the beasts of Al-Qaeda. His agents maintained liaison, and met with Al-Qaeda at far-off places, planning what?

(A Twin Cities reporter’s WCCO-TV “Reality Check” added a new wrinkle, calling it “no real connection.” Still wrong. Was reality really checked?)

Chairman Melendez hangs his hat on “no connection.” His premise is false. So much hateful drivel nowadays is hung on false premises. Both sides are guilty.

Dear reader, this is how a political myth gains gains credence and accepance. First the false premise becomes an article of faith for the Party member — same as in “no WMDs” and the ever-popular, mindless mob-inspiring mantra, “Bush lied.” These things all good Party members must believe in, and passionately. Thus do myths soon become enshrined as “facts.“ In this case, a new liberal shibboleth! Sooo easy.

Without a hint of the irony, Chairman Melendez turns to the cameras at a press conference (timed for the 6 p.m. news slot) and howls in mock indignation: “We won’t stand for propaganda that can’t be backed up by facts.” Irony never had it so up close and personal as in this statement delivered to the TV cameras.

Another basis for targeting ads is Chairman Melendez’s bogus claim the spots amount to “swift boating.” Ingenious! New in the left’s lexicon, and its quiver of arrows, Orwellian as heck, the term “swift boating” implies — and Dems cleverly want you to infer — a correlation somehow between their lie-laced trashing of Judge Robert Bork in 1988, and truth-telling of the Swift Boat Veterans & POWs for Truth in 2004. (See also, my post-election analysis, “Swifties’ Sink the USS John F. Kerry.” )

Trouble is, the “swifties” told the truth, documenting every step of the way, in their successful stop-Kerry campaign. Indeed, truth (small 't") is a powerful tool. One wonders why it is not employed to greater extent politically.

Senate Democrats led by Senator Ted Kennedy relied on slime and lies to dispose of Judge Bork as a Supreme Court nominee. Dirty business. Hence the new verb, “to bork.” If anything, “swift boating” is the antithesis of “borking.”

Did my state’s DFL receive marching orders from Howard Deans’s Democratic National Committee? Good question! Likely yes. If so, did the DNC fear these inspiringly patriotic TV spots might crop up in other states? So it’s katie-bar-the-door to stop them now? Could be.

For such grave charges to be flung, dung-like, at veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and their families, would require orders, I think, from higher ups. But like comedian Dennis Miller, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Count on backlash. Americans feel indignation at lack of respect for their military. As Orwell put it, our military allows us all to “sleep peaceably…because rough men stand ready to do violence on [our] behalf.” Many GIs have paid the ultimate price for our peaceful naps.

Thankfully, the amorphous “American public” politicians like to talk about, and woo for votes, is not easily fooled by party rhetoric. The jig’s up.

Consider: Military units home from Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots are celebrated in local parades, in schools, even (gasp!) in churches. Cheered at airports, feted at civic clubs, they stand tall and proud. (Unlike us ‘Nam vets, they get drinks paid for in bars!) They have every right — true moral authority, if you will — to speak out, whichever way, on these matters.

At this writing (2/21/06), the DFL effort to shut down patriotic TV spots in Minnesota draws no outrage, no storms of protest, from news media. Not a peep. Why the blind eye? Where’s the outrage?

On other occasions, energized media would mobilize to warn hysterically of the perils of censorship. Free speech and all that jazz, you know. Not so far in Minnesota. Only silence from the liberals. Shhh. Do Not Disturb: Hypocrisy at work.