As 2003 draws to its close, images both good and bad flow through my mind. I am worried about what we have wrought this year, but hopeful that 2004 will find us wiser for our mistakes and misjudgments. At the same time, I am optimistic about our opportunities and grateful for what we are doing well.

The contrasts are very real. While war in Iraq began early in the year and wasn’t much of a fight, the aftermath of rage and attacks has eroded Americans’ confidence in what was supposed to be a lofty liberation effort. We entered the war on false premises, and are suffering daily tragedies as a result. The capture of Saddam Hussein is the bright spot, and a tribute to our soldiers and our intelligence efforts.

The opportunity in Iraq in 2004 is to help build a real democracy in a part of the world known for its brutal dictators and lack of personal freedom. For that to happen, we not only can’t cut and run, but we must also be willing to support a uniquely Iraqi form of democracy, which may not look like ours. Our goals in Iraq should be security, freedom of speech, elimination of corruption, the creation of stable civil institutions, such as the rule of law, and equal opportunity. How that happens is up to the Iraqis, supported by US troops as the transition unfolds. How successful we are depends on our willingness to drop our foreign policy of arrogance for one of respect for our allies.

On the economic front, the much-touted tax cuts have given us a monstrous federal deficit and a widening gap between rich and poor, hardly a policy to make us proud. In Colorado, a similar shortsighted policy has drastically harmed higher education and left many in need to fend for themselves. This is not the Colorado or the America that gives the world an example of fair play and the American dream.

While the floundering economy is moving forward again, it is not rebuilding a decimated job base. Without jobs, we cannot give our children what generations of our predecessors have, a better life than our own. My wish for 2004 is that policy-makers at both state and federal levels will focus again on investing in our kids, making sure that they get the education and training they need to be successful, and assuring them the health care they deserve in a society as rich as ours. It is not enough to pass legislation that promises to do better; there must be the money behind it to make those promises happen.

Two press photos delineate the contrasts in our country’s social policy. First is the photo of President Bush, surrounded by successful white men, smiling as he signed away a chunk of a woman’s right to choose. Not a woman in sight, though no man has yet become pregnant and needed an abortion. The willingness to insert government into private decisions is antithetical to our founding precepts of personal freedom and responsibility.

In sharp contrast was the photo of four young women, sitting in the cockpit of the air tanker they fly over Afghanistan. To see an all woman crew, on active duty in the military, flying a complicated machine in a combat situation, is a thrilling testament to how far we have come in assuring equal opportunity to women. Yet, we know from the scandals at the Air Force Academy and throughout the military, that women are still raped, abused, even murdered, often without any penalty to their attackers. In 2004, let us hope that the photo of the air tanker crew, rather than the investigations of sexual assault, personifies the reality of America’s military.

As we look forward to 2004 and its elections, we need to look back to 2003, to evaluate what went right and what went wrong and to assess the ability of our leaders to take America forward and make us proud. My hope for 2004 is that we will once again become the most admired, rather than the most despised, of nations. That will prove how much we learned from 2003.