Bush Communicates Mission, Demonstrates Quick Reflexes

President Bush made what will likely be his last trip as head of state to Iraq and Afghanistan this past weekend. He reassured Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Afghan President Hamid Karzai that America will not abandon our mission to bring freedom to those countries regardless of the looming transition of power here at home.

Will our next president follow through with the mission in a logical fashion? Will he be the same friend Bush has been to American troops and our wartime allies by making a few morale-boosting trips into the war zones? Hard to say. Right now, Iraq and Afghanistan are not at the forefront of peoples' minds.

Bush's trip to Iraq to meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki probably would have slipped off the front pages altogether were it not for a randy Afghan report who hurled his shoes at Bush and called him a "dog." Bush ducked the attack and joked about it afterward.

If this guy and others like him were so vocal during Saddam Hussein's regime, perhaps we never would have needed to invade Iraq in the first place.