IF YOU WANT INSTANT GRATIFICATION, YOU'RE IN THE WRONG PARTY:

Meeting in the Oval Office (Mona Charen, Sep 13, 2006, Human Events)

President Bush was at his most passionate on the subject of democracy. He reiterated his belief that policies of previous administrations toward Middle Eastern autocracies helped give rise to the fever that now convulses the Arab world. "I understand why they did it," he adds, "concerns about oil or the Cold War with the Soviet Union. But while the surface may have looked calm or stable, we've seen what was happening beneath the surface." This administration is determined that the only way to break the fever is to change the conditions that give rise to extremism. "You can call it draining the swamp. I call it advancing democracy." Acknowledging that he wasn't thrilled when Hamas won the election in the Palestinian territories, he nonetheless believes that the election itself was a blow to centuries of absolutism.

As for the progress of democracy in Iraq, the president is basically optimistic and impatient with the nation's impatience. "We live in a world where there has to be instant success. 'Why is there no democracy in Iraq yet?' Because there are people willing to kill to stop it." (Would the Second World War have been won if we'd had daily body counts in places like Normandy and Iwo Jima?) "We must be steadfast in our deep belief in liberty and stand with those who are committed to freedom."