You won’t agree with it all, but some interesting honesty (the first part, really) from Bill Maher on Larry King last night:

MAHER: Because he’s Bush the resolute, the one people think is going to protect them. He’s sold the story and they bought it. Like I said, you can’t work backwards from our disdain for George Bush. I never liked this guy either, but I have to admit, he pulled off a pretty good election victory there in Iraq, and it could work. It could work. I think that was a huge moment for the Iraqi people. I don’t think as so many liberal friends of mine are finding ways to dismiss that. Oh, anybody can have an election. They really didn’t vote for anything. Who cares what they were voting for. The point is, it wasn’t about voting. It was about them going outside their homes. It was hands across Iraq. It was showing each other, we’re real people who want a real country. And these insurgents, they’re not part of us. That was a huge moment, and…
KING: People were knocking the election.
MAHER: Oh, poo pooing it. Making it seem like it wasn’t a big event. And it really was a big event. Now, of course, what it proves is that freedom is so powerful that it could even work when you’ve screwed everything up until the day they had the election, as much as you possibly could. I think the question is, does this absolve George Bush, even if it works in Iraq. Does this absolve George Bush of all the mistakes he’s made leading up to it? Does it cab absolve Abu Ghraib Prison. Does it absolve freezing on 9/11. Does it absolve ignoring the warnings leading up to 9/11, all of his other mistakes. And also, does this administration get the fact that even if Iraq works, al Qaeda, which is, let’s not forget, the real enemy, has morphed and evolved now into a sort of different kind of enemy. It’s more of a lifestyle than it was before. And there’s no denying that fighting the war in Iraq has energized the Jihadis. Those are the people we really have to fear, and really attacking us. Even if Iraq works, I would give him credit for it, does not necessarily make us safer and that’s the issue.