Senator Byrd, of all people, is lecturing the administration that "The Congress is not an ATM!" Daschle says the Senate can't support the spending the president has asked for to rebuild Iraq, unless he delivers an agreement from the "international community" to chip in. That'll really help. If we have the U.N. and a bunch of NGOs under foot there, he's gonna need more money from American taxpayers. I think the most important thing we can do is keep training Iraqis and educating them on what freedom really means.

I'd really like to see Instapundit's idea of a trust shared by all Iraqis to own the oil resources, and let it pledge part of future profits to repay the coalition nations for the costs of ridding them of Saddam. They need to learn that freedom isn't free. It may come as a gift, but the upkeep is not cheap. Of course, that will give the Democrats and the whiners in Europe something new to whine about. They'll claim it's proof that we were only after Iraq's oil, but I don't think that we should be ruled by the anticipation of lying accusations. It's the Little Red Hen principle.

A new Gallup poll says that 69% of Americans believe that the Patriot Act is "just about right" (48%) or "doesn't go far enough." (21%). 22% agree with Glenn Reynolds.

I was thinking today about President Bush's speech on Sunday evening. From all the hate speech against him, I'd have expected a swaggering hick in a cowboy hat to come out and spit before, launching into a jingoistic tirade. Where was that guy? It seemed pretty somber and thoughtful to me. It's the Democrat 9 that look like cowboys, making all kinds of challenges they can't back up.