Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, the saying goes. Well, we’ve seen that by the bushel-full from the Obami. First, they hide behind George W. Bush’s skirts on the handling of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists (whom, unlike Bush, they can’t bring themselves to call by name). Now they are claiming credit for the triumph of the Iraq war, which they opposed, wrote off as a lost cause, and would have short-circuited amid the screams of genocidal terror. Joe Biden on Larry King Live:

I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.

I spent — I’ve been there 17 times now. I go about every two months — three months. I know every one of the major players in all of the segments of that society. It’s impressed me. I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.

Put aside the Biden-esque self-congratulations and puffery for a moment. It is really remarkable that Obama’s supporters simultaneously claim credit for Bush’s heroic decision to persevere in the war (i.e., to ignore candidate Obama’s call to retreat and candidate Biden’s loopy idea to carve up the country), and yet — while deeming it one of their greatest achievements (well, they have so few others so far) – they won’t refer to it as a victory. It’s the troops’ return home, you see, that is swell.

No, it’s the victory of American troops who emancipated tens of millions of Iraqis from a brutal dictator and freed the region from a destabilizing aggressor. But that would be more “triumphalism,” and we can’t have that. You see America should not be triumphant, but the Obami are free to trumpet this as their own personal accomplishment. Shameless.