Defeatism was Just Campaign Politics

"We are now in the age of a sober and judicious President Obama who circumspectly, if reluctantly and in anguish at the high cost, does what is necessary to keep us safe. And we won't see [any] brave young liberal senator, Obama-like, barnstorming the Iowa precincts blasting a presidency for trampling our values with the shame of Guantanamo, wiretaps, intercepts, renditions, military tribunals, Predators, Iraq, etc. That motif just dissolved -- or rather, it never really existed. It short, all the fury, the vicious slander, the self-righteous outbursts, the impassioned speeches from the floor, the 'I accuse' op-eds by the usual moralistic pundits -- all that turned out to be solely about politics, nothing more."

-- Stanford's Hoover Institution scholar Victor Davis Hanson, on the Obama administration's belated agreement with Bush policies on nearly every aspect of national security