Even when Mark Steyn isn’t really saying anything new or surprising, he says it so amusingly that it’s a must-read: Defiant? He’s a Ba’athist who won’t bath.

As for the Democrats and the European media, they long ago decided that their slogan for the 2004 election is “It’s the stupidity, stupid”. President Bush is a moron; therefore, everything that happens must be evidence of his moronicness. I was saddened to see my old friend Mark Lawson of the Guardian falling for the canard that Mr Bush served up a “plastic turkey” for Thanksgiving and deducing from this that the President was in desperate fear of being a onetermer. No doubt he’s already moved on to mocking the pathetic attempt to serve up Saddam’s lice-infested head on a platter to the gullible American public just in time for Christmas.

It’s just a suggestion but maybe if you’re that convinced of Republican stupidity you ought to write about something else between now and, say, the start of Condi Rice’s second term in 2013. The fact (if you’ll forgive the word) is that things are going pretty well, and there’s really no losing scenario in Iraq. Mr Bush may not succeed in bringing democracy to Mesopotamia, but so what? If he has to settle for a Musharraf and a big American base on the Syrian border, it’s no skin off his back. But it’s still better to have tried.

But I think he’ll wind up with something close enough to a free society in Iraq. I was mighty heartened by Paul Bremer’s press conference on Sunday. He made a simple announcement – “We got him!” – and the roomful of journalists erupted in jubilant cries of “Death to Saddam!” True, this turned out to be the Iraqi journalists. The western correspondents had far more mixed feelings. Oh, well. Cheer up. There’ll be a new quagmire along in a minute.