Best zinger of the month!

I've said before that James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web Today column is a fine commentator. Today he absolutely burned New York Times editorialist, Adam Cohen:

We Wuz Robbed!
Adam Cohen, an editorialist for the New York Times, has come up with a new reason to hate President Bush. The president, Cohen argues, "robbed America of its optimism":

President Clinton was often mocked for his declarations that he still believed "in a place called Hope." But he understood that instilling hope is a critical part of leadership. Other than a few special interest programs – like cutting taxes on the wealthy and giving various incentives to business – it is hard to think of areas in which the Bush administration has raised the nation's hopes and met them. This president has, instead, tried to focus the American people on the fear of terrorism, for which there is no cure, only bad choices or something worse.

Well, this passage from President Bush's Second Inaugural sounds pretty optimistic to us:

We have seen our vulnerability--and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny – prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder – violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

Besides, Adam, where have you been? There is actually a reasonable explanation for why Americans fear terrorism more now than they did during the Clinton years, and it isn't because of anything President Bush has done. We'll be happy to explain it to you over drinks. Just meet us at the time of your choosing at Windows on the World.