Article VDH is right on target, as usual. On the Right the politicking works out with cynicism and disgust: “These ungrateful and hateful people aren’t worth the life of another American soldier or American dollar.” Yet the Bush idealism wins no points from the Left either. Both for partisan purposes, and due to the wages of multiculturalism that oppose any Western effort to bring to the other the good life that they themselves so eagerly embrace, Leftists still harp about no blood for oil and assorted conspiracies in lieu of legitimate analysis and criticism. What, then, is needed — aside from crushing the jihadists and securing Afghanistan and Iraq — is more articulation and explanation. The word “liberal” — as in promoting liberal values abroad, and reminding the world of the traditions of liberal tolerance — needs to be employed more often. It still amazes me that there are some individuals that do not understand the stakes we are dealing with in the WoT.