Jay Ambrose asks, "What if Obama was president instead of Bush":

More and more it looks as if we've won the war in Iraq, thereby giving the United States a crucial victory in the struggle against Islamic radicalism, and it is clear we wouldn't have if the most important war protester in Denver this week had had his way.

That protester is not one of the street shouters waving a banner and thinking he has thereby made a profound, world-changing statement, but Barack Obama, who rode his opposition to the war to primary and caucus wins and finally to his moment of selection as the Democrats' presidential nominee.

His position on the unpopular war was not the only thing leading to his triumphal hour at the Democratic National Convention, but the position undoubtedly was the sine qua non of his candidacy, and he did not stop with saying the war was wrong.

Early on, he proposed a U.S. troop withdrawal divorced from conditions on the ground, and he opposed the troop surge, saying at one point it wouldn't work and insisting it would put more American lives in danger.

In fact, the surge in combination with new battleground tactics and other factors vastly reduced U.S. and Iraqi casualties and has helped get us to a remarkable point. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been all but destroyed.

Aided by a population sickened of endless killings of Iraqis doing nothing but going about their daily lives, the Iraqi armed forces have grown in strength and have established order in increasingly large swathes of the country.

A confident Iraqi government has been negotiating with the United States about when we will go home. And we've already reduced the number of combat troops to pre-surge levels with more troop reductions planned for the fall.

Put Obama's timetable in place and take away the surge he did not want, and we could now be facing a deteriorating situation with deep, dark tragedies lying in wait: A quick return to a dictatorial, vicious, anti-American regime, genocide, an al Qaeda resurgence and the increased likelihood of terrorist strikes within the United States.

Found via Glenn Reynolds. A corollary to Ambrose's story, which would make an equally good column, is how the key moments of the last four years, from the GWOT, to Katrina, to the economy would have been reported by the legacy media if all of the events were the same, but Obama or someone else from his party had presided over them. Something tells me the collective tone of Katie & co. would have been just a hair less apocalyptic.

(See also: media coverage of American events under Clinton, Bill.)