As many have pointed out, the reason elected officials tend to neglect infrastructure project issues, like reinforcing levees in New Orleans and bridges in Minneapolis, is that there's no glory when a bridge doesn't collapse. There are no round-the-clock news specials when the levees hold. Preventing another terrorist attack is like that. There is no media coverage when another 9/11 doesn't happen. We can thank God that President George Bush didn't care about doing the safe thing for himself. He cared about keeping Americans safe. And he has, for seven years.

If Bush's only concern were about his approval ratings, he would not have fought for the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq. He would not have resisted the demands that we withdraw from Iraq, year after year. Bush's war on terrorism has been a smashing, unimaginable success.

There wasn't a major al-Qaida attack in 2002. Nor in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, or so far in 2008.

As Bush has said, we have to be right 100 percent of the time, the terrorists only have to be right one time. Bush has been right 100 percent of the time for seven years -- so much so that Americans have completely forgotten about the threat of Islamic terrorism.

For his thanks, President Bush has been the target of almost unimaginable maliciously false statements. Compared to the anger directed at Bush, there has always been something vaguely impersonal about the "anger" directed toward the terrorists.

It seems roughly one in four books in print in the world at this very moment have the words "Bush" and "Lie" in their title. Barnes & Noble might as well add an "I Hate Bush" section. The ferocity of the attacks on Bush even scared many of his conservative allies into turning on him over the war in Iraq.

George Bush is Gary Cooper in the classic western "High Noon." The sheriff is about to leave office when a marauding gang is coming to town. He could leave, but he waits to face the killers as all his friends and all the townspeople, who supported him during his years of keeping them safe, slowly abandon him. In the end, he walks alone to meet the killers, because someone has to.

That's Bush. Name one other person in Washington who would be willing to stand alone if he had to... because someone had to.

OK, there is one, but she's not in Washington yet. Appropriately, at the end of "High Noon," Cooper is surrounded by the last two highwaymen when, suddenly, his wife (Grace Kelly) appears out of nowhere and blows away one of the killers! The aging sheriff is saved by a beautiful, gun-toting woman.

[edited column of Ann Coulter]