CELEBRATING SULLIVAN: Andrew Sullivan scared me at first. I was a liberal. I voted for Gore. And yet every time I read his conservative blog, I found myself saying, "You know, he's right."

More than any other writer or thinker, Andrew Sullivan has spurred me to slow down, to reconsider, to go beyond my partisan, liberal instincts (the instincts of a middle-class, college-educated, suburban-bred white guy who wants the world to be nice and peaceful and just) and to really think about what's right (small R), what works, and what's true. The world is messy. Pacifism is not viable. And just because George Bush sounds like an idiot doesn't mean he is one. (And vice-versa for my former hero Clinton.)

Here's Andrew today on our latest good news from Baghdad:

This is an amazing victory, a victory over a monster who gassed civilians, jailed children, sent millions into fruitless wars, harbored poisonous weapons to threaten free peoples, tortured thousands, and made alliances with every two-bit opportunist on the planet. It's a victory over those who marched in the millions to stop this liberation, over the endless media cynics, over the hate-America crowd, and the armchair generals. It's a victory for the two countries in the world that have always made freedom possible and who have now brought it to another corner of the world made dark by terror. It's a victory for the extraordinary servicemen and women who performed this task with such skill, cool, courage and restraint. It's a victory for optimism over pessimism, the righting of past wrongs, the assertion of universal truths against postmodern excuses, and of political leadership over appeasement. Celebrate it. Don't let the whiners take this away from you or from the people of Iraq.

Cheers, Andrew. Cheers to victory.