Three (or at least two, anyway) thoughts about the clash between the vigilant supporters of General Wes and DWT

(1) I've never had any interest in General Wes as a candidate, but now I'm thinking, is it maybe time for a Democrat who not only knows how to enforce Message Discipline (or has people who do) but knows how to answer back, quickly and with necessary force? If Al Gore or John Kerry had been able to do this, we wouldn't be in the fix we're in today.

Oh, sure, the Radical Right in combination with the usual Democratic fractiousness would have made it impossile for either Gore or Kerry to actually govern, but wouldn't government paralysis resulting from violently acrimonious partisanship be a heady improvement over what we've wound up with?

(2) I forget what (2) was. Before I finished writing (1), I was struck with the need to get (3) down while it was in my head. By the time it was down, (2) was gone, poof!

As best I remember, (2) was a wickedly smart observation that would have impressed everybody on all sides of the issue (possibly on all sides of all issues), brought peace to the Middle East and possibly cured cancer. If the current state of my memory is any guide, I'll probably think of (2) in just about an hour. Strangely, though, it won't be nearly as smart then. Somehow its time will have passed.

You're probably pointing and giggling and saying, "What a dufus! Can't even remember his own stupid point!" This is harsh but not unwarranted. It suggests, though, that you're still too young to realize that someday, and possibly a day much sooner than you imagine, this will happen to you too. The way I look at it, I may have lost (2), but I've still got (1) and (3), and under the Official Scoring Rules—made up by me, as it happens—this still puts me ever so slightly ahead of the game. By the thinnest of margins, I'll admit, but slightly ahead.

(3) Everyone keeps saying, "That General Wes is, whew, such a real smart guy." Yeah? So what?

Again, I grant you that, all things being equal, a smart guy is probably better than a dumb guy. (Again, offered in evidence: the lump who's been squatting in the White House since Jan. 2001.) But the world is full of smart people. Where has that gotten us?

Understand now that I'm speaking not about General Wes in particular but about smart people in general. Being smart doesn't stop people from saying and doing dumb things, and I mean really, really mind-bogglingly dumb things.

Does this point really still need to be made?

Obvious as it is, evidently yes. And so, in the same way that one hates to be always bringing up a cautionary fable as blatant as "The Emperor's New Clothes," and yet one is forced to do so because old Hans Christian Andersen nailed a phenomenon that seems destined to be permanently with us (in fact, we seem to be living in a culture that's modeled on the emperor's fashion regime), I'm afraid I'm forced to remind everyone that those ghastly long years of death and destruction that were the Vietnam War were brought to us by "The Best and the Brightest," as David Halberstam made sure we would all remember them forever.

We do all remember, don't we? Anybody?

Again, I'm not saying that General Wes is just like those other smart guys. Just that I'm not interested in hearing about how smart he is. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara--to pick a not entirely random example--was one real smart cookie too. Ask him today how that worked out.