Speechwriter extraordinaire Peggy Noonan on Bush's Second Inaugural

Salon.com Politics:
"The speech led Noonan to wonder if the Bush White House didn't 'have a case of what I have called in the past 'mission inebriation.' A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts. One wonders if they shouldn't ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not.'"

"Mission inebriation" - what a marvelous phrase, and how apt for the fool's errand on which we are embarked in the Middle East and Central Asia. While we must wish for success in Iraq and Afghanistan because failure would ill serve America, it would be foolhardy, indeed, not to recognize the very long odds we face.

Perhaps all that can be done at present is to pray that the Iraqi election process will go forward next Sunday relatively smoothly in the regions dominated by the Shia Arabs, the Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrians. If meaningful results can be obtained in any of the Sunni Arab districts, that will be as icing on the cake.

There is so much that needs to be done, one can only hope that the adventure in nation building can be halted where we are now committed. We have neither the manpower, the treasure, nor the will to take on significant new challenges of the sort we have on our plate now.