Now maybe you can return the favor and admit that this is going to take longer and cost more than anything anyone here or in the Administration had previously admitted.

If Bush had been able to precisely predict exactly when the war would end, who would get killed, what damage would occur, and how much it cost, he wouldn't be President, he'd be God. Please point out any war in human history that came out exactly as the nations involved intended it to.

The war itself came in far above anyone's predicted expectations, especially those of the crepe-hangers on the Left, but why the hell should we give Bush or the military credit for that? Let's just crap on Bush because the rebuilding is going slowly, if surely, and people are still shooting at us, which was apparently a surprise to no one except the press.

Maybe I should start pulling up examples of major social and other government programs that met the optimistic goals and frugal budgets predicted when they were being shoved through Washington. Oh, wait. There aren't any.

Oh, and by the way, those government programs aren't going to end like a war eventually does. They go on forever, or until the economy collapses under their weight.

It's a hoot watching liberals suddenly worry about how much something costs. The same politicians wailing about the cost of the war in Iraq tried to shove an 8-billion-dollar-a-month Democratic prescription drug program down our throats.