But doing their damnedest to throw sand in the gears, to convince our enemies that we can be made to give up, and throwing out Vietnam analogies that are gleefully picked up by Arab newspapers, is not helping anything.

Ted Kennedy and other Democrats need to sit down and shut up if they don't have anything other than "Bush sucks" to add to the debate.

And by the way, this will be dealt with just like other problems are dealt with. I don't know why the Sunnis and Sadr made their play this soon--it would have worked better for them in June--but the militias needed putting down, and this way we didn't have to do it preemptively.

As far as constructing fantasies, the idea that this is a "popular" uprising is just such a fantasy. Or a lie if you want to be less accommodating.