The Discerning Texan

If Iraq can be stabilized, then the enormousness of that achievement will eventually be appreciated and dwarf all else (taking out the worst regime in the Middle East and fostering a consensual society in its place, while defeating on its home ground the worst radical Islam has to offer). The Democrats seem to have ceased blaming each other for voting for Iraq, and demanding time lines of immediate withdrawal, but now are shifting in order to have a fallback position of “Well, they finally listened to me in Iraq and so things settled down” should Gen. Petraeus’ report convince even some of them of real progress.

The responsibility of governance is not the same thing as easy op-ed criticism, and the nation is learning just that as it listens to our would-be future presidents—whether Obama’s apparent Pakistan invasion option, or Hillary’s pandering with pseudo-accent to African-Americans, or the obsessions of Mrs. Edwards with Obama, or her husband’s continual embarrassment of living high in one nation, while lecturing others about the needs of the other.

I say all this remembering that friends used to tell me that in March 1991 George Bush would win by a landslide in 1992, and in 1987 Ronald Reagan would either be impeached or resign, or that after 9/11 and the despicable pardons, Bill Clinton would be ranked among our very worst presidents.

The point is that few know exactly how the country and the world will look by November 2008, but it may very well be that the U.S. will enjoy a position of strength and respect abroad and security at home — and someone still in office in late 2008 will get a great deal of credit for that.