Five years ago today President Bush made his infamous carrier landing and gave a speech before the “Mission Accomplished” banner. A couple of years ago, I collected a few responses from the President’s admirers.

The best came from John Hindraker of Power Line: “Yeah, we’ve had better leaders. Their names were Washington and Lincoln. And maybe Roosevelt.”

Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO’s Corner was in rare form as well:

That looked to me like a pefect landing, to cap off a combat war won in under a month. If the likes of Fox News Channel and NR chose the pictures that would best characterize his presidency: bullhorn at Ground Zero, in a flight suit on the deck of the Lincoln, hanging with his me . . .

And again here:

This is different, guys. And it’s not just because he is a Republican and I like him. It’s different because he is a leader of a nation that is winning a historically significant war. He is using the props of commander in chief to show the nation and the world–the day after the State Department announced that terrorism is at its lowest point in decades in the U.S.–to demonstrate that we are winning this long war on terrorism, even if we still have miles to go, to show that we support these guys who fought and those who died for our freedom and for the freedom of Iraqis, Afghans, and hopefully in the future, others in that part of the world . . . Again, this is not some stunt photo op.

Filed under: Iraq, Politics