In the movie "Madagascar," a group of penguins spends an enormous amount of time, planning, plotting and scheming to break out of the Central Park Zoo in New York City, and escape back to the South Pole where penguins are supposed to live.

They dig a tunnel, escape, get caught, hijack a ship and make their way to what they think is the Promised Land. But they find out that the South Pole, despite all their dreaming and effort, is cold. It's windy. It's empty. There's no food. There's no party.

The three penguins get off the ship into their icy, baron nightmare just standing, standing, looking and standing before "Skipper" the penguin notes, "Well...This sucks."

Many of the 60 million Americans who voted for President Bush couldn't be blamed for thinking the same thing. All that effort, all those hopes...for this?

The predominant theme after the 9/11 attacks, when it came to the war on terror, was boiled down to three words: "Whatever it takes." That's why President Bush was re-elected. He was viewed as a man who would actually do whatever it takes.

Instead, "Whatever it takes" has been hijacked like the penguins' ship: "Whatever it takes...to close Guantanamo Bay." "Whatever it takes...to kill the Patriot Act." "Whatever it takes...to block any conservative nominees." "Whatever it takes...to pull out of Iraq." "Whatever it takes...to wait out the next three years until Kerry/Edwards/Hillary/Biden/Dean/Cynthia McKinney can become president."

If you voted for President Bush, it's no wonder you feel the same way now as Skipper the Penguin in the South Pole.

Oliver Willis wants to know why it took less time to bring the Japanese to the surrender table in World War II than it’s taken to defeat al Qaeda. Well, for starters, we had a president at the time who dropped TWO NUKES on Japan. Make that for enders, too. But even Americans who hated Harry Truman gave him the benefit of "Whatever it takes."

If Truman were around today and considered dropping The Big One against al Qaeda, someone in the State Department would leak it to the media, MoveOn.org would hold mock hearings, blogs would hold special fundraisers for anti-nuke candidates, and Sen. Richard Durbin would complain that "if you didn’t know better, the use of weapons of mass destruction would appear to be something out of the dark days of Saddam Hussein’s regime."

"Whatever it takes" worked to win many wars for this country, including World War II. But, as we see now, "Whatever it takes" has changed.

What the penguin said.