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Michael Novak on the Democrats and George Bush on National Review Online
...Finally, there is the matter of faith, even of the sort Tom Paine showed in 1776. Paine was no Christian, but he did believe that God had created this vast and splendid universe in order to share His friendship with free women and free men, and for this reason the Creator put freedom at the core of things. Tom Paine had no tolerance for the Bible, and less for Biblical fundamentalists, but he was not so much an atheist, he wrote, as to believe that the Almighty Who made the universe for liberty would allow the cause of people willing to die for it to come to naught. Paine couldn't bring himself to believe that God would favor George III.

In that same spirit, I find it hard to believe that the Creator who gave us liberty will ignore President Bush's willingness to sacrifice his own presidency for the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq — their 50 million citizens, and perhaps their progeny for ages to come. A kind of cosmic justice (which does not always materialize, I recognize) calls for vindication. Especially when the president has been so unfairly calumniated by his foes, domestic and foreign....