When, as Atrios posted, Diane Sawyer apologizes for mischaracterizing Senate Majority Leader Reid's vigil for our troops, and the Dallas Morning News asks for decency to counteract the cretin in chief's belligerence, this world is full of light and promise.

There is very encouraging trending toward the rational side at the Dallas Morning News' editorial page, and their plan for fighting terrorism is a good sign. While noting that the cretin in chief will hand on his war to his successor, the editors say they'd like to hear ideas that go beyond jingoism and get-tough military solutions.

The editors cite an earlier analysis from the Aspen Institute's Walter Isaacson;

He recommended a NATO-style Middle Eastern anti-terrorism alliance, a Marshall Plan-type program to help reduce poverty and build a stable middle class in the region, and health assistance to help reduce the pockets of misery that form fertile recruiting grounds for al-Qaeda.

The ideology of liberty sounds great as a slogan, but if the intelligence estimate is any indicator, it's not working as a strategy to stop al-Qaeda.

This is the editorial page that ended 100 years of support for capital punishment this year, and I think their decency and intelligence is coming out in many ways. Rejection of the insanity of the Iraq War is truly something to be proud of, and I am proud to be a subscriber.

The truth hasn't escaped this newspaper's editors, as they point out:
It's impossible to know whether the U.S. strategy has made the world safer. One thing is certain: The White House detoured our fighting forces from their principal mission – fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan – in order to wage a debilitating and divisive war in Iraq, where al-Qaeda was not a threat before 2003.

The light at the end of the tunnel needn't be that trainwreck about to happen, if this kind of enlightenment prevails.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com )