Sometimes one statement sums up the character or essence of a thing better than anything else could. This is true if the statement is to the point, uses short and old words, and means to make a statement of fact about some massive issue that heretofore may not have been clear. If you have ever doubted--because of the Vietnam experience or because media bias--what the character of an American fighting man is, doubt no more. In this New York Times story, some 14,000 Marines are moving toward Baghdad, with pleasure, after winning a tough battle that lasted many hours. "A kind of electricity filled the air," the writer says. And here is the pregnant line: "We’re in bad-guy country," Col. John Pomfret said, surveying this newly captured piece of Iraqi territory. "I like it."