My job as the President is to lead this nation into making the world a better place

*My job as the President is to lead this nation into making the world a better place. And that’s exactly what

we’re doing.

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States,

and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Nope,

nothing about saving the world. Maybe he thinks he’s Bono or Miss America.

I was rather hard on William Tucker in today’s Collateral Damage, with good reason, but I also pointed out a

few good moments in his essay “Call It a Democracy and the Hell With It.” One passage I didn’t quote

certainly merits kudos:

The entire Vietnam War was fought on the premise that we were creating a little “island of freedom” in

Southeast Asia, that we could surgically distinguish between guerrillas and civilians, that we were winning the

“hearts and minds of the people,” that the war could be “Vietnamized” by propping up a local constabulary

(which is only hated all the more for collaborating with the enemy), and that putting in just another 100,000

to 250,000 troops would finish do the job.