OP-ED: Still No. 1, By Robert Kagan, Washington Post, October 30, 2008; A23

Sender thought I might rebut.

Truth is, I think this was a fabulous piece by Kagan and I agree with it 100%.

Hell, check out my own column this week, and pre-order my book. Stripped of his "league of democracies" notion, which I abhor, I often find myself in very strong agreement with Robert Kagan, whose Dangerous Nation was THE inspiration for my history chapter in Great Powers.

Seriously, an out-of-power Kagan is more than tolerable. He'll quite often be right and the voice of serious reason.

Honestly, my first thought when I saw those pics of Obama reading Zakaria's book, with that title, was, "that's a great way to lose an election."

We are a slightly center-right nation right now, and if Obama loses track of that, he'll be a weak-ass Jimmy Carter in office, especially with all those Clinton-clones hanging around (Bacevich's point in the LAT recently).

(Thanks: Jeffrey Itell)