Guest editorial: Morale booster

The two and a half hours the president spent dishing out food, talking with the soldiers and briefly meeting with four members of the Iraqi Governing Council was a means of lifting troop morale and reassuring friend and foe that the United States is committed to its democratizing purposes in Iraq.

"We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost in casualties, defeat a brutal dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins," Bush told the cheering soldiers.

There was at least a hint in some newspaper analyses of the visit that its secrecy might somehow undercut its effectiveness, but an announced visit would have been on the order of a reckless dare to Iraqi insurgents, and could have led to unnecessary deaths. As it was, the visit was the sort of exercise in positive symbolism that can energize others in the hard, dangerous work that remains in making the forces for decency in Iraq stable enough to enable the withdrawal of America's military.

Might the visit also have been politically adroit, as some observers say? Sure. And so what? If presidents were to avoid doing the right thing because it was also the politically smart thing, it would only be because we have fools as presidents.