Bill Kristol is happy, as am I, that the PResident is finally fighting back against his critics. And he needs to continue the fight day after day.

Now the president and his team seem committed to fighting back. They have the advantage that the facts are on their side. As several commentators have pointed out in this magazine and elsewhere--most recently Norman Podhoretz in the December Commentary--the Democratic charge that Bush lied us into war is itself a lie. Lies can work when unrefuted. In a healthy democracy, they tend to boomerang when confronted and exposed. Now Bush has begun to refute the lie. He needs to keep doing so, and also to continue making the positive case for why the war was right and necessary.

If the American people really come to a settled belief that Bush lied us into war, his presidency will be over. He won't have the basic

level of trust needed to govern. His initiatives, domestic and foreign, will founder. Support for the war on terror will wane. The lie that Bush lied us into war threatens the Bush presidency in a way no ordinary political charge does. Bush needs to refute it--and to keep on refuting it--for his sake, for the nation's, and for the sake of the truth.

He must continue the fight because if the support for the war keeps diminishing, and we pull out of Iraq too soon, think of what will happen in the Middle East. Right now, we have the potential for some real good to come out of all this: a friendly government in Iraq, Lebanon turning to democracy, Syria weakened, and Iran isolated. If we withdraw too soon with our tails between our legs, we will be back to being the "weak horse" that Osama Bin Laden termed us, a pusillanimous country that will invite more and more attacks because we will have demonstrated that we don't have the will to stick when the going gets tough. Is that really what all those calling for an exit plan with a date certain truly desire?