To those who were opposed to the war in Iraq but are currently engaged in praising the elections and calling them the "first step" toward Democracy, please remember why we were able to hold free elections in that country yesterday.

Those elections are to be credited to the vision of a President who was willing to buck popular international opinion and do the right thing in Iraq.

And yes, we invaded based on a mistake but you cannot deny that there have been some very satisfactory side effects. And yes, we have paid for these elections with the lives of our soldiers...but freedom takes time. A free and democratic Iraq will be a powerful ally in a region where the ideals of freedom and democracy are not widely accepted. It can be the "first step" toward bringing an oppressed and politically backward region of the world into the 21st century.

That, my friends, is worth fighting for.