High Noon in Iraq

Victor Davis Hanson uses one of my favorite films as an anaolgy for Gen.Petraeus and the Surge:

At the beginning of High Noon, everyone praised Marshall Kane as
they did Gen Petraeus. Then as the clock ticked, they abandoned him, and hid
back inside when the outlaws seemed invincible. At the end of the movie with the
bad guys dead, the fickle public changed once more and cheered their Marshall on
for a second time.
We the townspeople are watching Gen. Petraeus watch his
various clicking clocks. It is hard to remember a senior US officer who was
greeted with more acclaim than he when he took over command of the coalition in
Iraq this February. Then as causalities mounted, and the insurgents kept staging
bombings, his posse of supporters began to disappear and run for cover.

Wasn't it Tom Paine who wrote of "fair weather patriots"? I'm proud and thankful to say I was for the Surge before it was cool.