"A MODICUM OF FREEDOM"

Not Quite A Patrick Henry Moment For Us: From The Tampa Tribune: One year and more than 600 dead Americans and $200 billion ago, President Bush was doing his Hans Solo impersonation on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln claiming ``Mission Accomplished,'' although it wasn't clear whether he was referring to finagling the use of a piece of military hardware as a campaign prop, or the fact he didn't lose his lunch during the tailhook landing.

Then last week the president showed up in the funereal drabness of the U.S. Army War College before a collection of officers who looked about as excited to be there as Beetle Bailey pulling KP duty.

Now the date moves ever closer to a faux hand-over of sovereignty to leaders who will have as much authority over their country as Margaret Dumont held sway over Freedonia in ``Duck Soup.''

And once again President Bush took to the airwaves to justify why keeping 138,000 U.S. troops in a country where everybody hates us is a bully idea.

One question the president avoided, though, is when there is a knock on the door and the family of a soldier is told their a son, their daughter, their brother, their sister, their father, their mother died so that a ``modicum of freedom'' might exist in Iraq - is that a good enough reason for their sacrifice?

And maybe it is for a modicum presidency.