beyond first class there's--congressional class!

Helene Cooper, who last week brought us a hard-hitting expose about the president's graying temples, is back in the Sunday Times with an interview in which Mr Obama allows that the US military might 'reach out' to 'moderate elements' of the Taliban: 'Mr. Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from more hard-core elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia [as the NYT quaintly calls AQ in Iraq], a strategy that many credit as much as the increase of American forces with turning the war around in the last two years. “There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region,” he said, while cautioning that solutions in Afghanistan will be complicated.'

It's always better to jaw-jaw than to war-war, as Winston Churchill pointed out, though it's not clear from the story that Mr Obama understands that we have been at war with the Taliban for nearly eight years, while we were never at war with the Sunni tribal chiefs who were the actual subjects of American outreach in Iraq.

But what struck me about the NYT story was the photo reproduced above. (Well, it's actually a triptych. It's worth clicking through to see it full size.) What we see there is the president in a chair a lot more comfy than the one I occupied last December en route to Denver International. He's chatting with the Ohio congressional delegation. The chiefs of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler--who were shamed into turning back some of their pathetic, narrow-body corporate jets--must be tearing their hair. I wonder how many of the Ohio congressfolk joined the chorus that lambasted the Detroit Three for their lavish mode of transportation last November?

Of course, the auto chiefs earn more than most (but not all!) congressmen. On the other hand, their job security is a whole lot less. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford