Time provides America a window into the torchered sould on the left and in the media as it keeps trying to declare everything we have done since 9-11 a loss or a futile effort:

All the good feeling at the White House at President Bush’s early birthday party on July 4 couldn’t hide the fact that the president finds himself in a world of hurt.

A grinding and unpopular war in Iraq, a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, an impasse over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, brewing war between Israel and the Palestinians — the litany of global crises would test the fortitude of any president, let alone a second-termer with an approval rating mired in Warren Harding territory.

Actually, welcome to reality where the world is a tough, complicated and cruel place. The media elite are getting a chance to peer out of their elitist ivory towers and see why Clinton’s feel-good rhetoric was just a charade meant to hide the ugly truth of the world from those who have no intestinal fortitude. The simple response to these kinds of liberal fantasies is to ask what would they have done differently? What else should we have done about the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan besides push for democracy? What else would we have done with a WMD capable Iraq which was training 2000 terrorists a year and had communications to Al Qaeda?

The response from the left has been ‘talk more’ or ‘let the UN deal with it’. Both of which are naive and dangerous. Time ignores the successes in Pakistan and the break up of the AQ Kahn nuclear weapons underground ring. They ignore the successes in most of Iraq and Afghanistan (they focus on the negatives, which is why they are all so depressing). They continue to ignore all the purple stained fingers which out number the dead 1,000 or more to one. They ignore Syria coming clean and turning over its nuclear weapons program elements to UN inspectors. They ignore the freedom gained in Lebanon from Syria in the Cedar Revolution. They ignore the recent elections in Kuwait (I believe) where women finally won the right to vote. They ignore everything which inconveniently collides with their fantasy of self-validation.

Bush is damned no matter what he does because these people are all about personal pique and being stubbornly wrong in the hope reality will finally show the right. Check out this silliness on North Korea (a problem since the Clinton years of Nirvanna)

And there’s no relief in sight. On the very day that Bush celebrated 60, North Korea’s regime, already believed to possess material for a clutch of nuclear weapons, test-launched seven missiles, including one designed to reach the U.S. homeland.

Even more surprising than the test (it failed less than two minutes after launch), though, was Bush’s response. Long gone were the zero-tolerance warnings, “Axis of Evil” rhetoric and talk of pre-emptive action.

Instead, Bush pledged to “make sure we work with our friends and allies … to continue to send a unified message” to Pyongyang. In a news conference after the missile test, he referred to diplomacy a half dozen times.

One has to wonder about a press which abhors any and all military solutions banging on Bush for not being stronger in response to a fizzled out failure of a intercontinental missile. If Bush had responded heavily to this dud, the media would blame him for over reacting! Which is why this is not a tail about Bush’s impotency and his failed policies. This is nothing more than another story about how the left is searching for any sign America is failing in the hopes their failures of vision and steadfastness can be corrtected for them. Too intellectually lazy to face the fact they have no solutions or ideas, they wait on others to fail to prove themselves worthy. One would suggest the come up with something positive to impress America, but that would be asking way too much of the leftward media (and the left in general). They want to wallow in their hate of all things conservative and their joint gloom that the world as they know it is coming to an end. They remind me of that robot with ‘the brain the size of a planet’ from The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. He was always depressed and depressing too.

The world is a hard place that cannot see resolution in quick, easy platitudes. The anger in the ME from years of propaganda and oppression is not going to go away quickly. The left has no staying power, so they prefer to simply believe all is fine when it is really not fine. Time has simply shown we have work to do to get to a better future. There is no news to that realization. We have to get up everyday and take actions that we hope will lead in time to a comfortable twilight time. But there are no gaurantees. Bush is facing the same thing, but at least he is facing it! Here’s a “Bah Humbug!” salute to the left, who simply seem to be overwhelmed on how hard life really is outside those ivory towers of theirs.

Addendum: Mac Ranger posts on how lame an idea this is as the international community wratchets up the pressure on North Korea through a series of coordinated (and not publically touted) acts to tighten the noose around Kim Jong Il.