Sleepers Awakening

Last weekend, two media pillars conceded Bush's foreign policy is working. First, NPR's Nina Totenberg in her weekly Inside Washington slot. Asked if President Bush deserves credit for the democratic movements rising in the Middle East, Totenberg -- a long-standing critic of Bush's Iraq policy -- admitted:

You know, let me say something here. If I had a hat, I would have to eat it. I’ve got my shoe here.


Nina Eats Symbolic Hat

I really did not think that this election in Iraq would make that much difference, and I was wrong. Of course, it really does help that Arafat died and they had a real election in Palestine. That’s just not insignificant, but, Charles, when you were right, you were right.

By the way, on the same program, the WSJ's John Harwood went further:

George Bush is going to deserve more credit for that than Ronald Reagan did for the demise of the former Soviet Union and the felling of the Berlin Wall. When Ronald Reagan took office, a lot of people, including Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- a lot of Republicans' favorite Democrat -- were predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union because of internal strains. What George Bush has set in motion, with the Iraq war and Iraq elections, are something very few people thought were going to happen and it's almost entirely due to what he has done.

Second is The Economist. Formerly a conservative-libertarian stalwart, the British magazine began drifting leftward with the 1990 ouster of Prime Minister Thatcher. Though The Economist supported toppling Saddam, the magazine lost faith in the occupation and ultimately endorsed ultra-liberal John Kerry. Yet this week, they're singing a different tune:

Since the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003, many of those who vehemently opposed it have mocked America’s neo-conservatives for having believed that the Iraqis would greet their foreign liberators with flowers and gratitude. Now it is the turn of the neo-cons to mock. A lot of people in the anti-war camp predicted that the war would cause upheavals across the Middle East, fanning hatred of the West and tipping friendly regimes into the hands of Islamist extremists.

It hasn’t worked out that way. On the eve of the war’s second anniversary, the Middle East does indeed seem to be in the grip of some sort of change. But, right now, much of the change seems to be pushing in a welcome direction, towards a new peace chance in Palestine and the spread of democratic ideas around the Arab world.

I salute Ms. Totenberg and The Economist for their gracious concessions. Welcome back to the realm of reason.

(via Media Research Center)

More:

Gracious is contagious:


Tuesday's Independent (UK)

(via Little Green Footballs)

Still More:

Don't miss Rich Lowry's round-up of "glum liberals . . . coping with a changing world."