Two headlines this morning caught my attention:

ONE MONTH LATER WORLD MOURNS
and
CONFIRMATION OF RICE APPEARS CERTAIN

My first thought was that the top headline should have read, TWO MONTHS LATER...then I realized that there were two separate topics here.

Indeed, the world has some mourning to do, as does our country.

My friend Michael wrote me an e-mail saying in essence that we misunderestimate Bush's intelligence at our peril. I think he's right; W has certainly been smart enough to put himself in the hands of a few tough, competent, brilliant, powerful people and he is survival-oriented enough to stay on message and keep out of the decision making.

His advisors--Rove, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al.--are the ones to beware of. W stays isolated from any information but what they feed him; they make the decisions and he plays president. Does it very well, too. What you can expect for someone who skated through Yale with C's and never cracked a book.