Current Temperature in Hell: 34 degrees Fahrenheit and falling?

If you're familiar with the UK weekly "The Guardian" then you're aware that their M.O. is usually to bash the U.S., and over the last eight years, to ridicule, belittle and besmirch the Bush administration. That's what makes this column all the more unexpected.

It basically sums up--from a much larger pulpit--what I've felt all along: George W. Bush, although not perfect, has been right on the War on Terror in general and the pursuit of al-Qaeda elsewhere in the world. He understood clearly, post-9/11, the threat that islamists would pose to freedom and democracy worldwide, and took the fight to their yard. A few excerpts:

The theocratic barbarism responsible for the attack on the Twin Towers was driven not by what America and its allies had done, but by what we represented.

He continues:

The most fundamental decision in western security policy in the past seven years has not been the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It has been the recognition that the most voluble adversaries of western society are not merely a criminal subculture, and still less an incipient liberation movement. Rather, they are a reactionary, millenarian and atavistic force with whom accommodation is impossible as well as intensely undesirable.

Read the entire article. It's not a pro-Bush honk, but a seemingly objective look at the overall Bush policy of pursuit in lieu of passivity.