The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: We ought to see what it will please them to do before we risk congratulations. - Edmund Burke

Liberty gained unimagined ground in 2004: here, with the re-election of George Bush; in Afghanistan, with the first free elections in 5,000 years; in Ukraine, with Viktor Yuschenko seemingly about to join Poland's Lech Walesa, the Czech Republic's Vaclav Havel, and Hungary's Arpad Goncz in the pantheon of heroic catalysts for freedom; and, soon, in Iraq.

They underestimated Bush - still insistently do. Yet as Aeschylus reminded, "It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish." In expanding liberty's realm, Bush has profited the West - verily, the world- as none since that other disparaged dunce, Ronald Reagan.

Abroad, 2004 was these other things: Gaza, and death, and the first Palestinian elections since 1976. Iran and North Korea apparently going nuclear. Beslan, Russia, and Darfur, Sudan. About 200 dead and 1,200 wounded in Madrid. Iraq - Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul, Abu Ghraib, missing weapons, and (in September) U.S. fatalities passing the 1,000 mark. It was Osama and Zarqawi, Haiti, Hugo Chavez. The UN doing nothing, meaning more of the same. The mammoth, horrific, Sumatra tsunami.

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Nationally, the passing year registered these names somewhere on the list: Vioxx, Celebrex, and Aleve. Delta, United and USAir looking to go toes-up. Tom Brokaw, Bill Moyers and an unapologetic Dan Rather at last chewing green in left field. Lance Armstrong pedaling to his sixth in a row; Michael Phelps splashing to two bronzes and six golds. The William Jefferson Clinton Library elevating mobile-home architecture to new heights.

Smarty Jones. Howard Dean's primal scream. Martha Stewart, Scott Peterson and Kobe Bryant. "Kenny Boy" Lay. George Tenet and Porter Goss. Britney Spears altaring twice in the same year. Jacko; sister Janet's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction." Howard Stern to Sirius satellite radio and Bob Edwards to XM. John Kerry windsurfing on Vietnam. The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Too many hurricanes to name, and too many rejected nominees to the federal bench.

The Swiftees and John O'Neill's "Unfit for Command" largely turning the election to Bush. Red states and blue states, the "debates," metrosexuals, the Democratic implosion. "The Lord of the Rings" in an Oscar sweep; "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "The Passion of the Christ." The Statue of Liberty reopened. The flu vaccine hardly to be found. Baseball evidently returning to D.C., fittingly (there) on the taxpayers' backs.

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Exeunt RIP: Ronald Reagan. Pat Tillman. Czeslaw Milosz and Daniel Boorstin. Captain Lloyd Bucher and Adm. Thomas Moorer. Ray Charles and Lester Lanin. Julia Child and Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper. Sen. Hiram Fong. Alistair Cooke. Continued...