I have a new piece up at Power Line today, "Four Deaths and a Rule Change."  For anyone interested, it's here.

I also have a new piece up at Hudson New York, "Is The Free Press Failing Us?"  For those interested, it's here.

WEDNESDAY,  JULY 8,  2009

AND NOW VIRGINIA - AT 9:17 P.M. ET:  Latest polling from Virginia confirms the trend we've seen elsewhere...the president's popularity is slipping.  From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

A new poll shows President Barack Obama’s popularity in Virginia has slipped below 50 percent.

The Public Policy poll of 617 likely general election voters showed Obama with a 48 percent approval rating, which is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

The survey showed 46 percent disapproval and 6 percent not sure.

The opinion is highly polarized, the poll shows, with 95 percent of Democrats but only 9 percent of Republicans viewing him favorably. Fifty-two percent of independents disapprove of his performance with only 38 percent approving.

COMMENT:  Virginia is a critical state.  It went for Obama last year, the first time in decades that Virginia went Republican in a presidential race.  Democrats have to be alarmed at the slippage that's occurred since inauguration. 

This can get much, much worse for Obama unless the economy turns around.  We'll get the usual hype about economic indicators, amplified by the amen corner in the nation's media.  But there's one thing about the economy - average citizens see it every day.  And they don't like what they're seeing.

Foreign crises usually boost presidential popularity, but this president's botched, sometimes casual handling of North Korea, Iran and Latin America has not done a thing for his standing, except to hurt it.

As we've said before, 2010 is shaping up as the most important midterm election in recent history.

July 8, 2009   Permalink

NO WARMTH AT WARMING CONFERENCE - AT 8:46 P.M. ET:  Despite all the yapping, getting international agreement on how to stop "global warming" (which hasn't occurred in a decade) is proving impossible.  The New York Times reports:

L’AQUILA, Italy — The world’s major industrial nations and newly emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on specific cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks.

As President Obama arrived for three days of meetings, negotiators for the world’s 17 leading polluters dropped a proposal to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by mid-century, and emissions from the most advanced economies by 80 percent. But both the G-8 and the developing countries agreed to set a goal of stopping world temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

COMMENT:  Apparently, most national governments don't agree with Al Gore that the world is going to come crashing down on us in the next, oh, five days or so.  They have their own economic interests, and suspicions about each other.

I wish more attention would be focused on unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit that still exists, and turning people loose to develop new energy sources that are practical, effective and economical.  It will be done eventually, after we make all the other mistakes, and waste trillions of dollars.

July 8, 2009   Permalink

CYBER ATTACK - AT 7:56 P.M. ET:  The latest on the new cyber attacks against the U.S. Government and others:

July 8 (Bloomberg) -- Web sites of the U.S. departments of State, Treasury and Transportation were attacked by unidentified hackers during the July 4 holiday weekend and in some cases the attacks were continuing today, officials said.

In addition, NYSE Euronext, the world’s largest owner of stock exchanges, said it was notified by authorities that it had been the target of a cyber attack aimed at slowing or shutting down its Web site.

The Department of Homeland Security is aware of the attacks and its Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or CERT, has advised government agencies and private companies on “steps to take to mitigate against such attacks,” Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the department, said in an e-mail today.

COMMENT:  Some stories making the rounds theorize that the attacks came from North Korea, as some South Korean sites were also hacked. 

If it did come from North Korea, you can be sure that the Obama administration will pull out all stops and write a really tough letter to the UN.  Major league complaining.  Threats of further study and anguish.

July 8, 2009   Permalink

GORE'S GONE WILD VIDEO - AT 7:38 P.M. ET:  Al Gore lost it a long time ago, but additional proofs pile up.  Now, he is comparing the fight against "global warming" to the battle to save the world from Hitler.  Delusional, or what?

Each day, more and more scientists - real scientists, not political scientists - step forward to report skepticism about the global warming religion that has gripped the chattering classes.  Gore will not listen.  He speaks.  The Times of London has the story, and a video to match:

Al Gore invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill yesterday when he urged political leaders to follow the example of Britain’s wartime leader in the battle against climate change.

The former US Vice-President accused governments around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming to avoid taking difficult decisions.

Speaking in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by The Times, Mr Gore said: “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.”

Mr Gore admitted that it was difficult to persuade the public that the threat from climate change was as urgent as that from Hitler.

COMMENT:  Yeah, too bad, Al, but climate change isn't invading France or bombing London.  And there actually hasn't been any warming for about a decade. Can you understand, Al, why your argument is fading away?  Oh, and Al, don't you realize that much of what you're saying depends on computer models, not real science?  Al?  Al?  Where you goin', Al?

Al has apparently been discovered posing in a Spitfire at the Imperial War Museum.

July 8, 2009  Permalink

POLLING JOLT - AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen's daily tracker, just out minutes ago, reports still one more jolting decline for President Obama:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 32% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –5.

The number who strongly disapprove inched up another point to the highest level yet measured to date and the overall Approval Index is at the lowest level yet for Obama.

COMMENT:  This confirms the other indicators we've been reporting.  The president is in choppy waters, bound to get worse once the summer recreation season is over and people once again focus on the news.  What can save him, and seems increasingly unlikely, is a quick economic upturn. 

This does not necessarily translate into good news for Republicans.  It only translates into opportunity.  If the GOP can seize the opportunity, and avoid further personal scandals, it has a good shot in November, 2010.  Now is the time for political entrepreneurship.

July 8, 2009   Permalink

THOUGHT OF THE DAY - AT 8:30 A.M. ET:  From Mike Gerson, formerly President Bush's chief speechwriter, writing in the Washington Post about the Obama administration's huge spending plans, as contrasted with our actual economic condition:

Obama's spending ambitions would have been jaw-dropping even in the best of economic times. Federal spending this year is about 28 percent of gross domestic product -- a figure exceeded only when Franklin Roosevelt was fighting a global war against Germany and Japan. Along the fiscal path Obama has chosen (according to the Congressional Budget Office) our national debt will more than double in 10 years and will amount to 82 percent of the entire economy.

Initially, Obama counted on an atmosphere of economic crisis to grease the passage of any legislation he pronounced an economic need. But it hasn't worked out that way. Whatever their virtues, restricting carbon emissions and expanding the health entitlement do not constitute a direct response to America's financial and economic failures. No economic theory suggests that a round of new federal regulations and entitlements would result in a burst of economic growth.

COMMENT:  And that is the key.  The measures taken thus far don't seem to be working.  The economic downturn is steeper and deeper than many Obamans had thought.  The unemployment statistic, a cold 9.5%, hides many other ailments - people not losing their jobs but having salaries cut, employees forced to take unpaid days off, the lack of incentive to spend on things like cars and clothes.  This translates into lower corporate earnings, and that dulls the entire economy. 

We are in trouble, both domestically and in a foreign policy that goes nowhere, but with noble speeches.  Already, moderate Democrats in Congress are in revolt against the coastal elites, realizing that their constituents are catching on to the impact of the spending craze.  These moderates dread going back to their law practices after the 2010 elections.  They are likely to team with the Republicans to stand in the way of more nutty ideas.

Do you sense that problems are just building and building?  I do too.

July 8, 2009   Permalink

HUH? - AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  Gateway Pundit alerts us to an interview the president gave to Fox News, in which Mr. Obama found it impossible to say that the West, led by the United States, won the Cold War:

Major Garrett: In your speech this morning you said the Cold War reached its conclusion because of the actions of many nations that were made by many nations over many years. Mr. President are the Russian sensitivities so fragile that you can't say that the Cold War was won, the West won it and it was led by a combination of democratic and Republican presidents?

Barack Obama: There were a whole bunch of people around Eastern Europe who showed enormous courage (like the Iranians today?) and... uh, I think that it is very important in this part of the world to acknowledge the degree to which people struggled for their own freedom. We don't have to diminish other people in order to recognize our role in that history.

COMMENT:  Who's diminishing anybody?  The heroism of many in Eastern Europe has been consistently chronicled in the United States.  But Obama is one of these anti-triumphalist types who thinks declaring victory is somehow sinful.  True, Churchill cautioned that, in victory, one must show magnanimity.  But Sir Winston always made clear who won, and celebrated victory with the best of them.

Once again, Mr. Obama shows he's out of synch with the culture of his own country.  I think this is beginning to hurt.  People sense it.

July 8, 2009   Permalink

CLINTON TOUGH ON IRAN - AT 6:55 A.M. ET:  The administration must get its act together on Iran (and on everything else).  Different voices are speaking, and often with different slants.  Secretary of State Clinton takes a tough line in an interview with, oddly enough, Venezuelan television.  Would she say the same thing to Fox News?

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Washington would call for more sanctions against Iran if the White House policy of engagement with Tehran failed.

Clinton said U.S. outreach to Iran may not work given the country's recent repression of protests after a disputed election.

"It may not be possible, in which case we would ask the world to join us in imposing even stricter sanctions on Iran to try to change the behavior of the regime," Clinton said in an interview with Venezuelan television station Globovision, broadcast late on Tuesday.  "We have seen in the last weeks that Iran has not respected its own democracy," she said.

COMMENT:  Okay, okay.  But, as Gen. Lauris Norstad, once commander of NATO, famously said, "Toughness is not a policy."  And so far, our Iran policy has had more drift than anything else.  The Obama administration will soon hit the six-month mark, and there really has been no serious action regarding Iran's nuclear program.  Yet, the centrifuges keep spinning, and Iran gets closer to the bomb.

The president has said, vaguely, that he'll give "engagement" until the end of the year to produce results.  Well, then what?  New sanctions, as Clinton is suggesting?  Who will agree to them?  Russia?  Are we serious?  China? 

The talking phase will soon be over.  The president's poll numbers are weakening, and one reason clearly is that he doesn't produce real results.

As we're written here before, it's going to be an interesting autumn.

July 8, 2009   Permalink

OBAMA IN MOSCOW - AT 6:40 A.M. ET:  The president is not a star in Moscow.  Might be best not to play this town again:

MOSCOW — Let other capitals go all weak-kneed when President Obama visits. Moscow has greeted Mr. Obama, who on Tuesday night concluded a two-day Russian-American summit meeting, as if he were just another dignitary passing through.

Crowds did not clamor for a glimpse of him. Headlines offered only glancing or flippant notice of his activities. Television programming was uninterrupted; devotees of the Russian Judge Judy had nothing to fear. Even many students and alumni of the Western-oriented business school where Mr. Obama gave the graduation address on Tuesday seemed merely respectful, but hardly enthralled.

And one logical explanation:

In the background is the question of race, which Russians view through a complicated prism. For decades, Soviet propaganda hammered home the idea that the United States was an irredeemably racist country, as opposed to the Communist bloc nations. But Russia in recent years has been plagued by racist violence against people from the Caucasus region and Central Asia, as well as other immigrants.

COMMENT:  Recent years?  Russia has always been known as deeply racist, something the committed American left could never emotionally accept.  During the mid years of the Cold War, when Russia made major efforts to penetrate Africa, African students were invited to Moscow to study.  The problem was, they were often harassed and even beaten up.  Not good for the Russian image in, say, Kenya.

Also, Russians, especially older Russians, can be deeply cynical about politics.  Politicians have not, after all, traditionally served them well. 

The only thing that really counts is the results of the president's trip.  To soon to know, but no one was making any concessions to him.

July 8, 2009   Permalink

TUESDAY,  JULY 7,  2009

EUROPEAN HEALTH, AND LACK OF IT - AT 8:53 P.M. ET:  Reader Carol Darien alerts us to a well-reported AP piece on European health care.  It's decidedly a mixed picture, and, if you're at the wrong end of the mix, consequences can be grim:

The concept has been enshrined in Europe for generations. Health systems are built so inclusive that even illegal immigrants are entitled to free treatment beyond just emergency care. Europeans have some of the world's best hospitals and have made great strides in fighting problems like obesity and heart disease.

But the system is far from perfect.

In Britain, France, Switzerland and elsewhere, public health systems have become political punching bags for opposition parties, costs have skyrocketed and in some cases, patients have needlessly suffered and died...

...Critics fear Obama's reforms will lead to more government control over health care and cite problems faced by European health systems as examples of what not to do.

And...

Many European health officials applaud Obama's attempt to provide health care to millions more Americans, but they also advise him to proceed with caution.

"What we can be proud of in Europe is the ground rules, that everyone has the right to health care," said Jose Martin-Moreno, a health expert at the University of Valencia in Spain. "But the implementation has been difficult and one size does not fit all."

Private health care is also available in Europe, creating in some instances a two-tier system that critics say defeats the egalitarian impulse on which national systems were built.

COMMENT:  In other words, we'd better proceed from facts, not from slogans or generalities.  We are talking about the sanctity of human life, a concept that some on the left treat rather cavalierly.  We are also talking about profound moral issues.  How much care do we give the dying?  The child with life-shortening defects?  The great scientist as opposed to the factory worker who may be competing for an available organ?

So far, our "debate" has been superficial and off-handed.  We can do better.

July 7, 2009   Permalink

AND NOW THE MOSCOW CRUNCH - AT 7:52 P.M. ET:  Reality has begun to interfere with President Obama's mission to Moscow, which will undoubtedly be described as the greatest diplomatic success since Neville Chamberlain flew back from Munich.  The Russians have little patience for sentiment.  From AP:

MOSCOW -- Russia's foreign minister warned Tuesday that the U.S. would jeopardize progress toward a new treaty with Russia on nuclear arms cuts if it decides to create a global missile defense system.

Sergey Lavrov spoke a day after the Russian and U.S. presidents reached a preliminary agreement setting targets for further reductions of the world's largest offensive nuclear arsenals.

Lavrov's message was that Russia will not agree to the cuts - which both countries say they want to codify in a treaty before the existing START I agreement expires in December - if the U.S. fails to assuage Moscow's concerns over missile defense plans.

COMMENT:  Talk about a bottom line.  This has been the Russian line for years.  President Bush wouldn't buckle under.  Will The One?  As he faces falling poll numbers at home, will President Obama yield to his leftist temptation and try to make the Massachusetts and California congressional delegations happy?  Or will he pursue the national interest of the United States?

It is crunch time, in many ways, for this administration.  Just wait for autumn.

July 7, 2009   Permalink

IRAN STILL BOILING - AT 4:29 P.M. ET:  Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi alerts us to another superb column by Michael Ledeen, who gets it right on Iran.  Note this quote:

Meanwhile, the American Government was sending conflicting signals to Tehran. On the one hand, it seems that Obama will be going to the upcoming G8 conference with a request that there be no new sanctions on Iran. This comes at a time when the Europeans, for the first time, seem inclined to get at least a little bit tougher on the mullahs, and it effectively demolishes the myth that this administration intends to do anything to support the Iranian people in their life and death struggle for freedom (perhaps this should not surprise us; after all, Obama’s 4th of July message did not contain the word “freedom,” but it did talk a lot about his own legislative proposals). At the same time, Vice President Joe Biden three times said the United States would do nothing to prevent an Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear targets.

So apparently we’re prepared to let the Israelis do our dirty work. A real standup sort of policy.

COMMENT:  The president's poll numbers are dropping - see our posts below at 10:15 a.m. and 3:10 p.m.  The Obama foreign policy is being scrutinized more and more, if only by bloggers and the few journalists trying to work around the mainstream media.  The honeymoon is fading.

July 7, 2009   Permalink 

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE - AT 4:13 P.M. ET:  This is the actual text of a bulletin just moved by CNN, under the heading, BREAKING NEWS:

At memorial service in L.A., Michael Jackson's daughter Paris says he was "the best father you could ever imagine."

We used to interrupt programs for Pearl Harbor, Dallas in 1963, stuff like that. 

July 7, 2009   Permalink

MORE BAD POLLING NEWS FOR OBAMA - AT 3:10 P.M. ET:  From The Politico:

A new Quinnipiac poll shows President Obama’s approval rating has dropped 13 points over the last two months in Ohio, a key battleground state with plenty of critical Congressional contests in 2010.

Obama now only holds a 49 percent approval rating, with 44 percent of voters disapproving. It’s his lowest approval rating in any Quinnipiac statewide poll taken since Obama’s inauguration. In May, Obama held a 62 percent approval rating in the Buckeye state.

Meanwhile, a 48 percent plurality of Ohio voters disapprove of the way Obama is handling the economy, with 46 percent approving. Two-thirds of Ohio voters are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the state.

COMMENT:  If this trend continues, 2010 could be a free-for-all.  And Obama's legislative program could be blocked...by moderate Democrats trying to prove how moderate they are.

July 7, 2009   Permalink

EXCESS - AT 2:57 P.M. ET:  I was just monitoring the TV networks.  Every major network, and all the cable news systems, are carrying the Michael Jackson memorial service live.  Sinatra never got this treatment.  Nor did Johnny Carson.  Both men were vastly more important, and had an impact on the culture over many more years.  And I recall how the networks would routinely reject President Bush's requests for air time when he addressed the nation.

Say nothing bad about the dead.  I'm sure Jackson was an exciting entertainer.  But the excess here is vulgar, a sad reflection on the values of many Americans. 

On the stage at the Staples Center is Michael Jackson, in a golden casket.  It would have been far nobler to have a simple coffin, with the money saved devoted to a favorite charity.

I flipped channels just as Al Sharpton was speaking.  What precisely does he have to do with Michael Jackson? 

We buried Ed McMahon, decent guy, Marine pilot; we buried Farrah Fawcett, once one of the most famous women in the world, whose struggle with cancer was an inspiration; we will bury Karl Malden, one of our finest actors.  No live coverage for any of them.

July 7, 2009   Permalink

BULLETIN:  RASMUSSEN POLL - OBAMA AT LOWEST POINT - AT 10:15 A.M. ET:  We always caution that polls are snapshots in time, but Scott Rasmussen has been tracking a steady decline for Barack Obama.  Today he reports:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 33% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-six percent (36%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –3. Those figures reflect the highest level of strong disapproval measured to date and the lowest level recorded for the overall Approval Index.

Overall approval reported by Rasmussen today stands at 52% approving, 47% not. 

Again, caution.  We'll be following this.  If Obama starts to hover around 50%, that is trouble.  His approval right after inauguration, in the Rasmussen poll, was 65%. 

Presidents normally decline in popularity as the honeymoon ends.  The extent of that decline is the thing to watch.

July 7, 2009   Permalink

INTRIGUING - AT 9:41 A.M. ET:  There's been substantial buzz about Joe Biden's implied "green light" for Israel to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.  Of course, he didn't put it that directly in a TV interview over the weekend.  He simply said that we could not prevent another country from doing what it felt it had to do in its own defense.  But the message got through.

Now President Obama is hotly denying that we gave any such green light.  Or is he?  His statement, made in Moscow and reported by the Jerusalem Post, actually adds to the intrigue:

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday strongly denied that the United States had given Israel an approval to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.

Asked by CNN whether Washington had given Israel a green light for such an attack, Obama answered: "Absolutely not."

But there was a caveat.  Consider:

In the interview, which was broadcast from Russia, where Obama is on an official visit, he added: "We can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are.

"What is also true is, it is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities," Obama said.

COMMENT:   Ah.  No green light, but we can't dictate to other countries "what their security interests are."  And it's our policy to "try" to to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.

Actually, Obama said pretty much what Biden said. 

Of course, we'll never admit to giving a green light, but I do detect a splash of green amidst the yellow.

July 7, 2009   Permalink

TRIAL BALLOON - SHOOT IT DOWN - AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  The economic masterminds in Washington apparently have the itch to spend again.  There are various home remedies for this - taking the checkbook away from the offender, locking teenagers in rooms, cutting up the department-store cards - but a stronger defense is needed on the national level.  Stop them before they spend again:

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the $787 billion approved in February was “a bit too small,” said Laura Tyson, an adviser to President Barack Obama.

The current plan “will have a positive effect, but the real economy is a sicker patient,” Tyson said in a speech in Singapore today. The package will have a more pronounced impact in the third and fourth quarters, she added, stressing that she was speaking for herself and not the administration.

COMMENT:  I'm not an economist and give no economic prescriptions, but we do know that the American people, as shown in one survey after another, are becoming deeply apprehensive over the level of spending and debt generated by Washington.  That apprehension easily translates into fear and lack of confidence.  It does not translate into hiring new employees or buying new items. 

We hope this economic decline doesn't get worse, but it might.  If it does, Mr. Obama will dream of a return to his first six months in office.

July 7, 2009   Permalink  

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  From Stanley Fish of The New York Times, who has earned my grudging respect for his regular refusal to go along with the party line.  He discusses Sarah Palin's resignation, and gives us a refreshing point of view:

She dated the beginning of her trials and tribulations from the moment in August, 2008, when “political operatives descended on Alaska digging for dirt.” She complained that “millions of dollars go down the drain in this new political environment.” She signaled repeatedly her weariness with the “superficial political blood–sport” politics has become. She returned to her own sport, basketball, to explain that because she had become a distraction she was going to do what a good point guard always does, pass the ball to someone (her lieutenant governor) in a better position to make the shot. And in the end she earned the declaration that “I have given my reasons plainly and candidly.”

But the pundits didn’t want to hear them or, rather, they were committed to believing that the real reasons lay elsewhere, and were strategic. They couldn’t fathom the possibility that she was just giving voice to her feelings. It must, they assumed, be a calculation, and having decided that, they happily went on to describe how bad a calculation it was.

COMMENT:  Good for Stanley Fish.  He proposes the possibility that Sarah's resignation was heartfelt.  He may be right or wrong on this, but at least he's willing, unlike many other "journalists," to give the governor a chance.  I hope he watches his back at The New York Times.

July 7, 2009   Permalink

McNAMARA - AT 7:49 A.M. ET:  On the day that I received my graduate degree from Columbia University, Robert McNamara, then secretary of defense for John F. Kennedy, was receiving an honorary doctorate.  It was entirely routine in those days for elite universities to honor men associated with national defense.  Most of the people in our universities actually believed in it.  That is not necessarily the case today, although, in fairness, we should point out that Princeton recently had Gen. David Petraeus, who holds a Ph.D. from that university, as a graduation speaker. 

McNamara's death, announced yesterday, has prompted the most detailed and passionate obits of any secretary of defense in memory.  That is due, obviously, to the fact that he's seen, rightly or wrongly, as the prime architect of the Vietnam War.  His death gives the journalistic and academic left a chance to remind us of its glory days opposing that war.  Of course, this crowd will never remind us that, once the North Vietnamese seized South Vietnam, and imposed a total, brutal dictatorship, the so-called "anti-war" movement showed not the slightest interest at all.  Enough lies have been told about Vietnam to keep us for a century.

I never cared for McNamara, who rarely seemed to get the main point of anything.  He was one of those men who intellectualized all subjects to death.  He was the perfect example to illustrate a famous story told about Lyndon B. Johnson.  After attending his first Cabinet meeting as Jack Kennedy's vice president, Johnson rushed to Capitol Hill to consult with his old mentor, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn.  Johnson told Rayburn of his wonder at the assemblage of men he'd just left - from Harvard, Yale, MIT, with all kinds of degrees.  Rayburn thought about it for a moment, then replied soberly, and the exact words differ depending on who's telling it, "Lyndon, I'd feel a lot better if one of them had run for sheriff."

Those were days when it was thought by some that every problem had an intellectual solution, that running for sheriff was for the lesser classes, that practical experience was a way out for those with average college board scores.  If you're getting the sense that you're seeing a sequel today, you're right.  The Obama administration has much the same character:  We are omnipotent because we are smart, because we know how to reason, because we speak well.

For two somewhat rough, but, I think, accurate assessments of McNamara, check Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal here, and Jonathan Tobin at Contentions here.

July 7, 2009   Permalink