How Goes the War?

I was happy to hear yesterday, straight from President Bush himself in a stirring speech presented to a captive audience of midshipmen at the Naval Academy, that the war in Iraq is going really well now, that in fact victory is within our grasp and we will settle for nothing less. The president even unveiled an official document titled "A National Strategy for Victory in Iraq."

All I can figure is that I must've been confused by the liberal media's biased reports from the front, because my own assessment of the situation so far, four years into things, had been far less optimistic. O.K. I'll admit it. All along I'd been thinking of Iraq as one big, fat mess. And as for a national strategy, I didn't even know we had one.

Nobody likes being wrong, but when it comes to victory in Iraq I don't mind being set straight. I imagine the president's report was also very comforting to the friends and families of those 2,000-plus servicemen and women who have died thus far in the Global War on Terrorism, the tens of thousands injured in the conflict, and maybe even in some small way any remaining survivors of the countless Iraqis who have perished in our pursuit of their freedom.