Bush's comma

"When the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma..."

George W. Bush

There has already been quite a bit of discussion about Bush's "comma" remark. Greg Mitchell, writing in Editor & Publisher, suggests it will be more like a period, to replace what he calls the "hopeful" comma. Pedant that I am, I am inclined to agree with Bush, but that is because I actually understand what a comma is. A comma may indicate a pause, which is what Bush was getting at, but a pause cannot exist without the resumption of time and circumstance.

For what might the war in Iraq serve as a pause? Not world peace, for it is nonexistent. Not peace in Iraq, for--despite the horrors of the invasion--it wasn't a bed of roses under Saddam Hussein. Not peace in the Middle East, for it does not exist, either. What the war did interrupt, however, was the sympathy most of the world had toward the U.S. following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

And following the comma will be the next clause, the one in which other nations do not want to hear about the United States' problems or become partners in the United States' international "projects." That will lead to the paragraph in which some emboldened world leaders are bound to notice that there is no war on terror in the U.S. and there never was. None of this will make any difference to the American people (if you believe that Reagan was a great leader, you will believe anything), who are not into reading paragraphs, anyway.

Oh, it's a comma alright. A pause at the brink. The punctuation of a list-maker with multiple tasks.