In other words, had Tiger Woods lectured schoolchildren on the importance of preserving the institution of marriage, marital fidelity and not being promiscuous — you know, the kind of healthy behavior that’s key to a happy life — she’d be giving him all kinds of hell right now. But, since he only cheated on his wife…

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Does that kind of thinking make any sense to you?

It does if you see the design behind it. The left wants to shut the right up, especially those trying to uphold traditional moral standards. And in order to silence those who would stand up for such things, with the help of popular culture and the media, they’ve managed to turn the world upside down into a place where you’re better off not trying to do good than risking the stigma of hypocrisy.

Because he was a drug abuser, was it wrong for Elvis to speak out against drugs? Of course not. Regardless of their personal habits, any role model using their perch to promote healthy behavior deserves credit — even a drug addict.

But I guess in Joy Behar’s world she’ll give a murderer credit for not preaching against murder, a drug abuser credit for not preaching against drugs and here she is giving Tiger his props for not being one of those types who speak out about upholding traditional moral standards … even though the world would be a better place if he had.  

It’s an impossible trap the left has set for us. We’re all human and we’re all destined to slip. But that’s the plan — to create an environment where only the sinless are allowed to speak out in favor of upholding morality. And since no one is sinless…

But who’s really on the side of the angels? 

Those who extol the virtues of a world where no one demands standards and values; where Roman Polanski’s forgiven because he would never dream of telling someone else not to anally rape a child; where no one strives for anything more than the cowardly pursuit of dodging the “hypocrite” label..? 

Or the imperfect ones, the “moral hypocrites” who at least try to do some good?

For one, you’d think colorful pie charts solve every problem, and you’d also think our military consists of nothing but troubled head cases. In the past year or so, USA Today has done little more than paint our military as rife with suicide, mental health problems, divorce, troubled kids and of course – alcohol and drug abuse.

Let’s look at the most recent USA Today piece on alcohol abuse. The paper reported that “Soldiers…with alcoholism or alcohol abuse, such as binge drinking, increased from 6.1 per 1,000 soldiers in 2003 to an estimated 11.4 as of March 31.”

That is disturbing, no doubt – and it’s all from military data. But what happens if you compare that figure to our general population? Well, according to the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 15.5 percent of the general population report episodes of binge drinking in 2006 – and for males alone – the number jumps over 20 percent.

Okay, think about that. Twenty percent of males in the general population binge drink – that’s one in five.

In the military – largely made up of young males who deserve to drink – it’s six soldiers per 1,000.

What does that tell you? Well, first: our soldiers seem far more well-adjusted than USA Today would like to let on. And also: our soldiers are far more capable of handling alcohol than non-military bozos like myself.

That should be no surprise: these are discipline dudes, and unlike me, their jobs require them to be clear-eyed and sober. As a magazine veteran and a television talking head, I can safely say that nearly all media jobs can be done drunk. The only dangerous machinery we face is an elevator.

Now to be fair to USA Today, my analysis is not perfect (I’ve had four martinis already). And I confess I’m not comparing apples to apples – the NIAAA stat was collected differently than the number cited in USA Today. Still, there’s a fundamental truth here: Our military doesn’t just rock physically, but also psychologically. It’s a truth that goes against USA Today’s and most film directors’ desire to paint our soldiers as ticking time bombs.

Finally, buried in the same USA Today piece is another interesting fact: “Enrollments in drug abuse treatment programs have remained largely unchanged in the Army during the war, rising from 3.7 per 1,000 in 2003 to an estimated 4.2 as of May.”

Think about that. As rehab clinics in America become more commonplace than bowling leagues – the Army presses on during the toughest of times.

I’ll drink to that.