Bad Omen for Kerry
It's not a good sign for John Kerry's presidential aspirations, that at this late stage in the nominating process, with as much bad news as there has been for President Bush, the Village Voice is calling for a draft of "someone - anyone - else" at the Democratic National Convention in order to prevent Kerry from dragging his party to defeat in November.

The Foreign Policy of the Bush Administration:
Provincial and poorly informed in terms of the understanding of the world which shapes its goals, strategy, and tactics; unilateral and aggressive in the use of superior military force to project the application of those goals worldwide. If you concede that "provincial and poorly informed" is equivalent to "ignorant", and that the imposition of one person's will upon another by virtue of superior force without the consent of anyone but the imposer is "thuggish", you can summarize the policy as "ignorant and thuggish." It is unworthy of the history, traditions and people of the nation it is discrediting abroad, and unworthy of the infinitely precious and terrible sacrifices it daily extracts from the nation's men and women in uniform. It does not require clairvoyance to see that in the long view those sacrifices will have accomplished nothing but a change of nameplates on the door to the office of "Despot in Iraq", and an increase in the sorts of ill will toward the United States which give rise to terrorist attacks on its citizens.

My Imaginary 60's Come to an End
Bob Dylan in a television commerical for Victoria's Secret?

The Limits of American Military Power in a One-Superpower World
The human race will never devise a weapon which overcomes the likely perception of a person in a land occupied by force, that he is being ruled against his will, in accordance with values he does not share. The same ethnocentrism which leads American policymakers to chronically underestimate the likelihood that they will engender this perception abroad, works in subjected populations to make the perception more likely. It is nothing more than the cultural and political expression of the universal inordinate self-preference which is one of our defining characteristics as human beings. This is the limit to the potential benefits which accrue to the United States by virtue of its ability to project military power in a one-superpower world. I suspect that it is a limit which most field officers in the United States Army understand much more clearly than most American politicians.

Another Hypothesis Bites the Dust
I have been guessing that whatever policy President Bush adopts on any given issue, John Kerry will find a way to second-guess regardless of the positions Kerry has adopted in the past. That is, after all, the challenger's prerogative when battling an incumbent, and I'm not accustomed to seeing candidates for elected office neglect opportunities, however squalid, to win votes. Alas, here is Kerry's statement on the President's endorsement of Israeli President Sharon's policy on Palestinian lands and refugees: "I think that could be a positive step. What's important obviously is the security of the state of Israel, and that's what the prime minister and the president, I think, are trying to address." My hypothesis isn't strictly refuted, though. Kerry doesn't say the Bush policy is a positive step, but rather that it could be one, and politicians, like cats, have evolved whiskers long enough to enable them to recognize small spaces which are just large enough for them to wriggle through. Nevertheless, to the best of my knowledge, this is the only issue, foreign or domestic, on which the major party candidates for the presidency have publicly agreed this year. Given the sad state of American electoral politics since politicians - paradigmatically, the original JFK - discovered the efficacy of marketing techniques developed for the purpose of selling goods and services, I suppose that this convergence of views is evidence that both Bush and Kerry believe they stand to gain more votes than they will lose by adopting this position, rather than evidence for or against its wisdom.

The President's Press Conference
A person in a position of power who doesn't realize his or her own fallibility, and bear it in mind when planning ahead, is a dangerous fool. On the other hand, a strong case can be made that the Trumanesque quality of refusing to get mired down in hand-wringing over past decisions is desireable in an executive, whose primary responsibility, after all, is not to tidy up his place in history but to shape the future. I see no justification for criticism of President Bush's leadership qualities based on his press conference of last night. On the contrary, it seems to me that he exhibited both a disposition to bear in mind his fallibility, and an ability to get on with the business of making the best of present options, undistracted by useless hand-wringing or preoccupation with developing new rationalizations to make his past decisions look better in hindsight.