On foreign policy, too, Reagan stayed his course despite heavy pressure from orthodox liberals and the media. He was ridiculed for saying that communism would end up on "the ash heap of history" in June 1982 and for attacking the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" in March 1983. He insisted on deploying Pershing missiles in Western Europe, as his predecessor Jimmy Carter had promised, and was attacked in huge demonstrations in Europe from 1981 to 1983. Democratic presidential candidates vied to prove they were the most fervent supporters of a nuclear freeze.

 Again Reagan persisted. The Pershings were deployed in November 1983 and the Soviet Union, when it finally got a healthy leader, sat down to the negotiating table with the United States. Two arms reduction -- not arms control -- agreements were reached during Reagan's second term. The Berlin Wall came down less than a year after he left office, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist two years later.

 There are lessons here for us. Democrats and the media for months attacked Bush for a "jobless recovery." But the Bush tax cuts of 2003, putting into immediate effect tax cuts promised for 2005 and later, have stimulated a recovery that has created 1.2 million new jobs in the first five months of this year. Voters have not yet appreciated this, but it will be hard to ignore by November.

 In Iraq, the interim government that will assume sovereignty June 30 is already in place, and its prime minister has thanked the American people for their sacrifices and says he wants American troops to stay on. A favorable United Nations resolution has followed.

 George W. Bush has just gone through a bad two months in the news media and in the polls, and he has stayed the course. John Kerry argues that he has been unwisely stubborn in the face of facts. As new facts emerge, voters may conclude that Bush, like Reagan, was wise to stay the course as he did.