Be Happy In Your Work!

I’m one of those who cheered when Wesley Clark pointed out that McCain’s prison time does not qualify him for the presidency, and annoyed when Obama seemed to back away from Clark: Republicans thought they saw a glint of fear in his eye and used it as an excuse to go full bore on attack.

But now it appears the smearing just might backfire. Roger Simon apparently stumbled into the punji trap of comparing McCain to Alec Guiness in The Bridge Over the River Kwai—apparently not grasping (let’s get this straight folks) that the Guiness character is broken and corrupted by his prison experience, and winds up a collaborator (track back from here). I say this is a good season for wall-to-wall reruns of The Manchurian Candidate, to give ‘em some sense of what military experience is really like.

Nostalgia Note: I first saw River Kwai the night before I went off to Army basic training (standing up, in the back of a theatre in Dayton, Ohio). Perhaps not a good beginning for a military career, but in fact, I loved the movie (didn't mind the Army either, but that is another story). Years passed before it sank in me that iRiver Kwai involves British giving management advice to the Japanese.