Why Bush won't waver.

Sixteen years ago an extraordinarily wealthy pop music star, still clutched in 2003 to the cultural bosom of liberals and "progressives" throughout the United States, concluded a breathtaking song with two lines that today define George W. Bush's resolve in bringing democracy to Iraq. Bruce Springsteen, who's called for Bush's impeachment at recent concerts, wrote in "Brilliant Disguise": "God have mercy on the man/Who doubts what he's sure of."

As I write on Monday morning, it's obvious that this week will be one of the worst of Bush's presidency. Democratic presidential candidates?let alone windbag defeatists like Sens. Teddy Kennedy and Barbara Boxer?will put fingers in the wind and then blast the administration's ongoing liberation and reconstruction of Iraq.

Gen. Wesley Clark sprinted out of the gate, declaring just hours after a U.S. military helicopter was shot down not far from Baghdad that Bush, the man he praised for leadership just after Saddam Hussein was deposed last spring, is a failure. At a campaign appearance in San Francisco, according to the Nov. 3 New York Sun, Clark said to a receptive audience: "[T]here is still no success strategy, there is no plan, there is no leadership. Where is the leadership? Where is the accountability?" Working the crowd for sure applause, Clark said if he defeated Bush next fall, he'd relieve Paul Bremer of his post in Iraq and also disallow Halliburton from doing business there.

I'm assuming that Sen. John Kerry, who must be in shock (or denial) that his campaign is going nowhere, will offer meaningless criticism that Bush and his cabinet need to foster better relations with France, Germany and Russia. Like Kerry, that's yesterday's news.

Meanwhile, it's imperative that Bush reaffirm, probably in a national address, his unwavering conviction that America will not back down from its responsibility in Iraq, a morally correct war that's vital to the security of this country and the entire Middle East. He has to communicate more effectively that the invasion wasn't a hit-and-run operation, that democracy can't be established in Iraq overnight.

It's a war: Soldiers are killed, an unspeakable tragedy for their families, but it's for an historical and noble cause. There will be more bad days, and weeks, in Iraq, but any sign of equivocation will result in utter chaos, from which the region won't recover for decades to come. Bush has a unique window of opportunity in which to bring stability, economic strength, freedom and civility to a part of the world that's been chronically repressed and devoid of hope. When, in time, Iraq becomes a flowering democracy, the ripple effect in neighboring countries is sure to follow.

The New York Times didn't editorialize about the downed helicopter and latest loss of life in Iraq on Monday?you'd think one of the paper's editors could've been roused from his or her country home to comment on the events?but William Safire did weigh in with common sense. Anticipating the predictable outcry from Democrats and the mainstream media, Safire concluded his column by saying, "We will help Iraqis win the final war against Baathist terror. Failure is not an option."

The Daily News, on Monday, also got it right. The lead edit read: "[T]he struggle in Iraq is greater than a contest over a single country. It is also why the entire nation of Iraq must be recognized as a war zone, as dangerous as any battlefield and requiring stepped-up aggression and vigilance.

"We are doing the work of the Almighty by whatever name you choose in relieving the suffering of an abused people while battling evil on its own turf. May the families of the lost find inspiration in the bravery of their loved ones and solace in the rightness of the fight."

Take a Day Off

Let's be charitable and just say this: Andrew Sullivan, whose outsized ego is on par with that of his mean-spirited nemesis Eric Alterman, writes far too much for public consumption. Bad enough that his website, which often has interesting insights and valuable links, is festooned with the slogan "The Revolution Will Be Blogged," but he's apparently buffaloed a bevy of editors to accept his essays as-is, no questions asked.

One recent example was an Oct. 19 op-ed in London's Sunday Times, in which Sullivan suggested that President Bush dump Dick Cheney as his running mate next fall in favor of Condoleezza Rice. This daft notion, a surefire way to alienate Bush's ironclad base of voters (in stark comparison to his father's hold on the Republican vote in '92), is based on Sullivan's belief that a Howard Dean-Wesley Clark Democratic ticket will "frighten" the White House. I'll ignore, in the interest of space, the failings of Gen. Clark, whose bumbling candidacy will be studied by future candidates who, unless they're as well-known as say, Hillary Clinton, contemplate entering a presidential primary race long after competitors have tilled campaign contributors, supporters and voters in early primaries. Clark's bid is in disarray, and he'll likely get back to commentary on CNN by late February.

No knock on Rice from this corner, but she's never run for elective office, and despite general approval from the GOP constituency, is no match for Cheney. Sullivan claims that the vice president is a dud on the campaign trail, which means he's not as animated as other candidates, but doesn't the ubiquitous journalist recall how Cheney demolished poor Joe Lieberman in their one debate in 2000? Sullivan also fantasizes that the inclusion of Rice on the national ticket would help Bush with black voters in particular, and minorities in general, but that doesn't make sense. Just look at the contempt Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is subjected to by fellow African Americans any time he as much appears in public.

Sullivan concludes this very dumb piece by saying: "It would also make for a fascinating race?Dean-Clark versus Bush-Rice?an evenly matched contest of argument, culture, and personality. You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one."

Bad enough that he invokes John Lennon apropos of nothing, but Bush supporters aren't looking for a "fascinating race," as if the election were a soccer game. They want to win, and dumping Cheney would lose far more voters (by people staying at home) than the few Bush would gain by tapping Rice.

Out of Gas

Tina Brown's now written two weekly columns for the Washington Post, both widely ridiculed for the alarming, even for her, self-parody, and one only wonders how the next installment (Nov. 6) will embarrass her employers. As Jack Shafer noted in Slate last week, the Post's own ombudsman, Michael Getler, was so appalled that he blasted Brown in an internal memo. It read, in part: "I don't do columnists. But I'm granting myself dispensation to opine that this precious, egocentric? piece [her debut effort from Oct. 23] was about the worst and most irrelevant thing I've read in my three years in this job."

Perhaps that's an indication that Brown's stint at the Post will have a shorter shelf life than even her disastrous Talk.

Speaking of which, the proud "buzzocrat" couldn't resist venting her anger over the magazine's unlamented demise in the column that came out last Thursday. She wormed her way to a nasty dig with little originality by observing that George Steinbrenner must've been mighty pissed that his Yankees were denied another World Series championship by a 10-year-old team that's "an MTV-generation franchise named after a fish."

What a clever gal.

She continued, in commiserating with Steinbrenner: "I guess he felt the way editors of 'real' magazines (i.e., the kind that publish things like articles in between pages of unrelated advertising) felt this week when Lucky, the no-content Conde Nast super-slick super-shopper, was named Advertising Age's magazine of the year."

This snippet of hypocrisy is far more caloric than even the "tubs of butler-served ice cream" that Brown, sitting in Steinbrenner's family box at Yankee Stadium for the final game of the series, saw the owner's grandchildren eating. Why Brown, who had a magnificent run in New York as editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, wants to impersonate a ballplayer who refuses to retire even after his skills are long gone, is anybody's guess. But for her to blast Lucky?which has been one of the few unique magazines to start in at least a decade?as a "no-content" title demonstrates, one would assume, that she's burned all the back issues of Talk in order to maintain her delusion that it was 9/11 that caused the monthly's failure and not its lack of content.

Additionally, while it's not a criminal offense, at least legally, Brown's claim that "real" magazines, presumably the ones she edited, were filled with advertising "unrelated" to the articles is ludicrous. The practice wasn't her sole brainstorm, but does Brown think that media critics don't remember that not so long ago, glossy after glossy featured fashion designers like Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren on their covers, with fawning portraits inside, while reams of advertising from their companies filled out the magazines?

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