PoliBlog

Goldberg on the Visit

Jonah Goldberg writes at The Corner on National Review Online

It was a brilliant, decent, generous, crafty, glorious gesture. President Bush was nearly in tears when he saw the gratitude and excitement on the faces of the troops. Obviously this White House saw a political angle. But that was a side-benefit. The troops deserved it. The troops appreciated it. And the American people, I bet, believed it was the right thing to do.

The Democrats will make fools of themselves if they go too far criticizing Bush. In fact, I think they'll make fools of themselves if they criticize him at all. They should just say, "It was a nice thing to do, our troops deserved it, in fact they deserve...blah blah blah." But I wouldn't be surprised if we get more flight jacket hysteria.

I must concur.

And fellow Corner-ite Rick Brookhiser wrote last night:

How right that he went; how heartened I am that he saw the rightness. Enjoy the moment. Tomorrow, Maureen Dowd will tell us it was a glitzy, glammy secret sideshow; Paul Krugman will explain that it distracted from the good economic numbers, which are really bad economic numbers; Frank Rich will compare it to some old TV shows; John Kerry will say that the troops should have stayed home in the first place, and by the way, he went to Vietnam. Whatever W's limitations with the talkoisie, he does seem to know how to talk to the Armed Forces.

Indeed.