Did either the nonexistent or the measured response after a series of attacks on Americans the past decade - in Lebanon, Africa, Saudi Arabia, New York, and Yemen - suggest to our terrorist enemies that it was wrong and unwise to kill reasonable and affable people, or did the easy killing imply that self-absorbed and pampered Lotus-eaters would not much care who or how many were butchered as long as it was within reasonable numbers and spread out over time?

Victory may now require a level of force deemed objectionable by civilized peoples, meaning that some, for justifiable reasons, may be reluctant to pursue it. But victory has not become an ossified concept altogether.

For all the criticism about warlords, it is now likely that Afghanistan will never again be turned over to al Qaeda to train thousands to conduct the type of murder we saw on September 11. For all real problems with ambushes and sabotage, there will be no more gassings, mass murdering, invading neighbors, sending guided missiles across borders or no-fly zones in Iraq, but rather the hard work of consensual government - a difficult process easily caricatured, but when completed universally admired.

After three elections, voters finally caught on that Obama's faults were not in the stars, but in himself. They apparently tired of the usual distractions from a dismal presidential record.

Americans spend more money on Botox, face lifts and tummy tucks than on the age-old scourges of polio, small pox and malaria.

I think the Democrat Party is taking its cue from the media. When the media has a narrative, whether it's the use of profanity, the Democratic Party follows it.

Ignorance and arrogance are a lethal combination. Nowhere do we see that more clearly among writers and performers who pontificate as historians when they know nothing about history.