Sometimes, it Really Isn't About You

I sincerely hope that Slate's Fred Kaplan is speaking only for himself, and not for even a minority bloc of Blue-state Nation (or for isolationists of whatever stripe), when he says this:

A question is haunting the blue states of America: Could George W. Bush be right? Is freedom indeed "on the march"? Did the war in Iraq uncork a white tornado that's whooshing democracy across the region and beyond?

Haunting? Really? I dislike Bush as much as the next guy, have long been worried about his foreign policy, and don't believe this last week somehow proves that his approach has been 50 percent right, let alone 100 … but sometimes it's OK to be happy, not "haunted," when scores of millions of your fellow humans languishing in messed-up countries lurch impressively in the direction of freedom. Doesn't mean that they'll get there, or that the policy debate is over, or that you have to suddenly accept the Max Boot version of history. But if concern over how this affects the domestic political struggle overwhelms the smile muscles in your face, it might be time to step back from that computer keyboard, and take a nice long walk.