I was smeared on “Morning Joe”

2. After calling me an “extremist” and claiming I do more harm than any other commentator, [Sachs] lists as evidence of that charge that I have “led us into all these disastrous wars.” Not Bush, not Bill Clinton in the Balkans, not the Senate and House that voted for both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but I have “led” us. That is as pathetic a charge as it is adolescent.

3. As far as “all these disastrous wars”: There have been three recent wars. A) I supported Bill Clinton’s removal of Milosevic; the world is better off without his bloodletting. B) I supported the removal of Saddam Hussein, the surge, and the fostering of the present government. The recent constitutional agreements in Baghdad and the relative calm, in the latest words of the Washington Post, seem to support the vision of Bush’ s original intent of a consensual government. The world is again better off without a mass murdering Saddam, and millions have had a chance of some sort of normalcy which was impossible under Saddam. History will sort out the final verdict on the terrible costs versus the clear benefits; the brilliant record of brave American soldiers, however, is already enshrined. I note as well that Obama, after running on the premise of wanting troops out by March 2008, for some reason has accepted the Bush-Petraeus plan of stabilization and withdrawal without exception. Joe Biden, remember, claimed that Iraq could be Obama’s “greatest achievement.”