David Brooks writes a short and clear piece on Bush’s winning strategy in Iraq. He focuses on the "November 15 agreement" which mandated that sovereignty would be transferred to the Iraqis on June 30th, 2004. The scpetics were wrong; the U.S. had to transfer sovereignty in order to stay, end the insurgency and rebuild the country. Since then--despite the mistakes--the administration has been constant, and that has servedus and the Iraqis well. I agree that there is more reason for optimism now than at any time. Victor Davis Hanson’s longer piece makes a broader point about the "current mythic world" we are now living in; the most interesting point here is that the left opposes freedom and democratization, almost everything they were in favor of a generation ago. This is best exemplified by not only the behavior of the Chomskys and the Soroses. Gore’s "recent bouts of insanity are a metaphor for the scary era we are living in. "But who is the real new Democratic guru that best refeflects the new Know-Nhtigness?" Michael Moore, this "half-educated, vindictive buffoon." The Left in this country "has gone absolutely crazy." Note some of these images protraying Bush from the Left. And Lee Smith, at Slate, asks why the Western press is whitewashing the relationship between beheading and Islam. Why do they all say that the Quran opposes beheadings? And, last but not least (via Instapundit), Linda Seebach reflects on a new study of media bias by profs at UCLA and Cicago (the full study in PDF file). She explains their method, and what they found. "Our results show a very significant liberal bias. One of our measures found that The Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News’ Special Report is the most centrist." And all three papers, plus NBC and CBS, "were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives."