Is public opinion turning in our favor? I don't know, but I hope so.

Among American intellectuals and social critics who have from time to time written from our perspective on the issue, two of my favorites are Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. Their URLs, respectively are:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/archive.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/archive.shtml

But of all the editorialists whose work I read every week, none is a better writer than Peggy Noonan.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/

Here is part of a paragraph from her most recent op-ed in which she's giving advice to Democrats, seriously, about what she would do over the next two years if she were a Democrat.

"Republican Mike Bloomberg of New York won't let workingmen and -women smoke at the local bar. Democrats always wind up in support of such measures. Don't! Distance yourself from the smoke Nazis, from all Nazis. Be sane; take the side of normal humans with normal imperfections. Let the Republicans look stupid on these issues if they choose to. Don't fall for it. The Sierra Club will love you anyway. (Politicians in New York tell me the tide has turned, that even people shuddering outside buildings grabbing a smoke say it's only right. I'm not shuddering outside a building, but I talk to smokers all the time and let me tell you how they feel about the banners. They hate them.)"

Noonan is not suggesting that only working class people smoke; instead, she is subtly making the point that wealthy pols like Bloomy (rhymes with loony) who claim to be "for the little guy" are really nothing but elitists who--because of their presumed right to tell other people what rights they have--will callously tax and control even the working poor in their power madness.

Bloomy and the rest are tyrants. Real Americans don't like tyrants. I think public opinion is turning.

I don't think public opinion was ever really that much against us - contrary to what the antis and the media might have us believe otherwise. Sure they can come up with their fabricated numbers: 440,000 deaths, 55,000 from SHS, 70% of the public supports complete smoking bans. They have been beating the same drum for 40 years and while there are fewer smokers now than then - the average person still thinks that smoking is a personal choice and that you won't drop dead from breathing SHS.

Peggy is one of the best - and I highly recommend Townhall.com to everyone. Search Opinionjournal back to, I think, October/November 2003 and read Noonan's column "Them". She's always right.