Dean Barnett writes, "We went through similar times in the early 1990’s. The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union crumbled and we won the Cold War. Yet it was beyond the typical liberal’s ability to acknowledge that Ronald Reagan had anything to do with these accomplishments":

What bin Laden said about the strong horse and the weak horse was right. And he and his minions don’t look like the strong horse running for their pathetic lives in Waziristan for years on end. The Islamic world has watched as al Qaeda has become the weak horse. President Bush deserves credit for fighting the war with the steadfastness he has. Remember, it was less than four years ago when John Kerry implored us to fight a more sensitive war on terror. Somehow I doubt sensitivity would have had the same impact on the Jihadists as the predator drones that now fill their skies.

I’ve never been reticent about pointing out the Bush administration’s shortcomings. Its spendthrift ways, its elevation of unqualified lackeys to positions of importance, its longtime adherence to ineffective tactics in Iraq, its inability to communicate…I better stop – I could go on all day. My point is that the Bush administration has been a flawed vehicle, and I’ve never shied away from saying as much.

But President Bush is on the verge of winning the big ones. It will be no small thing if he has shown and mostly secured the path to victory in Iraq and in the War on Terror before leaving office. It will drive the left crazy and as was the case with Reagan, it will take liberals decades to admit it, but Bush will strut back to Crawford a big winner.

Few remember that Abraham Lincoln spent years running a dreadful war effort presided over by the ineffective likes of George McClellan and Joe Hooker. And those who do remember such things view them charitably, as Lincoln got things right by the end. If President Bush does wind up also having gotten the big things right, something that seems increasingly likely, the enormous successes of his administration will dwarf the failures in history’s eyes.