deadzone, that’s a poor argument on several levels. First, the war is still ongoing, and it can’t be a success or failure until it’s over. Would you have advocated surrender in WWII in 1943 because the war was not yet won?

When you say newspapers from other countries have no interest in American politics, how do you square that with the assertions of several people on this thread that people from other countries are worldly and cosmopolitan? Wouldn’t such people have knowledge of American politics, and given their knowledge and our power wouldn’t they have to have an interest in who runs this country? I bet if I held up Fox News as a source of unbiased opinion on Australian politics you’d disagree. Why should Australian or British journalists, who tend to hold the same views on common domestic issues as American journalists, view American foreign policy any differently?

Finally, exit polls say the primary issue in the Republican defeat was corruption. I won’t defend them there, they deserved to be hit on that score. I wish there was a better alternative to turning the country over to the party of Alcee Hastings (removed from the federal bench for perjury and bribery) and William Jefferson (in whose freezer the FBI discovered $100,000 in alleged bribe money).