Shocked And Awed

Is anybody keeping score out there? Yes, I know the economy is still in the tank, and there's probably very little a jobs program or a flat tax or anything short of a redistribution of wealth will fix anytime soon. But didn't I just read that the war in Iraq is over, at least for Americans. The troops are coming home.
Then there's that little matter of Libya, where regime change was accomplished without U.S. soldiers on the ground. The dictator was toppled the old fashioned way: by the people he was oppressing. Okay, maybe the NATO air strikes played a part, but after forty years, the Mad Dog of the Middle East has been put down. And the mastermind behind the Taliban and al-Qaeda was dispatched with quiet efficiency as well. Over the past six months, a great many of the "bad guys" have been sent packing. It's almost as if there was a list or something.
And so it doesn't quite stand up to the image of Hope and Change we might have all imagined on that November evening three years ago, but things are happening. "Terrorists and dictators, lacking the filibuster, have no effective defense against Barack Obama," tweeted Democratic strategist Rebecca Kirszner Katz this past week. It's kind of sad that all of a sudden we have traded our Presidential image from Martin Sheen to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but these are curious times. Maybe some Navy Seals could push through some education reform.