….is the title of Mona Charen’s latest column, and I probably don’t have to elaborate on who she is referring to, but I will.

She makes a point that really should be considered by the American left, but of course won’t be, because while the Bush Administration is prosecuting a global war on terror, the liberals are prosecuting a domestic war on the Bush Administration.

During the 1990s under Clinton, remember Somalia, where Bubba panicked and withdrew our troops in a tail-between-their-legs manner at the first whiff of American casualties, he labelled the U.S. a bluff, and subsequently allowed terrorists to bomb two U.S. embassies and the U.S.S. Cole without executing any notable retaliatory measures. Well, Mr. Hillary did manage to destroy an aspirin factory with a well placed cruise missile, but if that accomplished anything at all, it was to piss off some Muslims who, if they hadn’t been jihadis before, well….

My point being that Clinton managed, in his own special way, to make the richest nation with the most powerful military machine in the history of the world look kinda sorta, well, toothless. Yellow. Impotent. Weak. Vulnerable. Moot.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, has let the world know that the U.S.A. is still the same strong nation it has been for a very lonnnng time, and that we are willing to make great sacrifices to advance the cause of freedom on our planet.

Since we went into Iraq, however, a sizeable chunk of our voting public, the politicians they support and the profoundly biased media that in turn supports them have done all they can to sabotage the war effort by demoralizing our troops by making their sacrifices and accomplishments appear to have been either worthless or for an evil cause and sending signals to terrorists that the majority of Americans are against our fighting them and the fascism they represent.

Leftist politicians are even demanding a timetable for our withdrawal from Iraq, a sure way of letting the enemy know when we’ll be gone so they can lay back, conserve their strength, assets and ammo and wait to attack the new Iraqi government after we’ve gone.

This would play right into the hands of anti-Bush, anti-war liberals, because the Iraqis would almost certainly be defeated by the fanatics and bitter Baathists in their midst, and then the left could crow that Bush screwed up in Iraq, because we “lost.”

And these people call themselves Americans?

But now we are in Iraq. The full prestige and credibility of the United States is on the line. Iraq has been liberated from Saddam, yet remains under assault from jihadists, dispossessed Tikritis, and a variety of other assassins and terrorists. Al Qaeda’s ringleader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, maintains a network of suicide bombers and saboteurs who blow our people up when they can and cut off hostages’ heads when they require added amusement.

If we were to withdraw in the face of this onslaught, the message to al Qaeda and to the world would be obvious: defeat. Osama bin Laden took credit for chasing the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan and gloated that his forces had frightened the U.S. out of Somalia. How much more decisive would it appear to the jihadists if they were able to chase the U.S. out of Iraq? And not just to them, but to any potential adversary anywhere on the globe? Don’t Democrats ever consider these matters? If they do not, can they really be considered mature or responsible?

Whether the liberals like it or not, we are in Iraq now and if we turn tail and cut out we will lose not only the respect of all those other nations that joined the Coalition and fought at our side, but also that of our enemy, who would view our evacuation of Iraq as a weakness and an indication of cowardess, and the next chapter might well be 9/11 revisited.

It does not bide well for our country when one of our two principal political parties considers attacking POTUS more of a priority than spreading freedom to countries that haven’t previously had any.