Admit It: Bush Was Right (Once)

The surge worked, writes Peter Beinart in the Washington Post, and liberals need to admit it—for their own good. Some 500 Iraqis died in Iraq in November, down from 3,475 in November 2006, a major success by any standard. American deaths fell from 69 to 12. But Democrats are loath to admit Bush was right about anything, because “they want to usher him out of office with the jeers he so richly deserves.”

The success of the surge doesn’t justify the war or Bush’s presidency, which has been so bad that “an entire generation of Democrats now takes it for granted that the right is always wrong.” But that's the same arrogance that led Bush to dismiss his critics and blunder into Iraq. Admitting he was right about the surge will "remind Democrats that no one political party, or ideological perspective, has a monopoly on wisdom." (More George W. Bush stories.)