BOY AM I in a terrible mood. I watched and listened to the punditry on President Bush’s speech on the USS Lincoln. The people he was standing before have been away from their families for ten months. That’s mothers away from their kids, fathers away from their kids, men an women away from their spouses, their mothers, fathers, and siblings. One hundred and fifty fathers on the Abraham Lincoln missed the birth of their child. That’s called sacrifice. Most of us are basket cases if we’re on a business trip away from our families for four days. These people were gone nearly a year. And they did it to defend the country. They did it to liberate the people of Iraq, so that 25 million Iraqis would be emancipated from a sadistic regime, the greatest victory for human rights since the defeat of the Soviet Union.

And what do my fellow pundits say? They sit in the studios and point out sagely that the speech was a tremendous photo-op, and then they go home to the safety of their beds and the comfort of their families.