Anne Laurie’s point isn’t all that clear to me, but she raises a question. Who would be in a Mitt Romney cabinet? And who, in particular, would be serving him as National Security Advisor? I guess there is a list of likely candidates, most of whom served in the Bush administration. Almost all of them meet my definition of crazy. Several of them meet my definition of criminal. I feel confident in saying that the vast majority of people on that list want war with Iran, just like they wanted a war with Iraq, and for the same reasons.

I remember when I visited the ruins of the World Trade Center in early October 2001. I looked out at the vast debris field and the cranes and bulldozers looked like Matchbox cars. I thought to myself that they would never be able to cart away all that debris. But they did it in under a year.

When Bush left office in the midst of the worst financial collapse of our lifetimes, with two festering wars, a discredited Justice Department, and the country’s reputation in tatters, I thought that the new president would never be able to clean it all up. And he hasn’t. But the idea that we might take all the garbage bags that have been gathered at the curb, and we would rip them open and spew it all back into the street?

Only small children do such foolish things.