Since the surge in Iraq that McCain supported in defiance of public opinion, the United States has shown how to stand strong against a terrorist-supporting enemy. A loud and clear message was sent to Osama bin Laden -- and those in the Middle East tempted to follow his example -- that the Americans had staying power not to turn tail as the United States did in Somalia. The international goodwill squandered by George W. will have to be redeemed by the next man to occupy the Oval Office.
In acknowledging the death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the editor of the New York Sun recalls that when he was planning a trip to the old Soviet Union, he asked to see Solzhenitsyn before he left. The famous Nobel laureate could not oblige, but offered this advice, "Remember, there is such a thing as good and evil."
I visited the Soviet Union for the first time during Glasnost, and several newspaper editors there told me how heartened they were by Ronald Reagan's characterization of their government as the "evil empire." If the president of the United States could call it like they saw it, there was hope that one day they might live as free men.
In his book "Hard Call: The Art of Great Decisions," McCain, writing with Mark Salter, tells of his admiration of Solzhenitsyn for making hard decisions that were not only not popular, but at risk of his life: "He was able to wreak enormous damage on the Soviet system of oppression and hasten the demise of the entire postwar balance of power."
Presidents are confronted with different kinds of decisions, but decisions just as brave and tough in making hard calls. The moment the president sits in the Oval Office, it's irrelevant whether we once saw him as a fighter pilot or a hero of the Hanoi Hilton, or as a celebrity with Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, or whether his face belongs on a dollar bill. Can he make the hard call? Will he flinch at the hard ball? Nothing blah blah about that.