SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:20 P.M. ET:

SPOIL SPORT? – Governor Rick Perry of Texas will announce his presidential plans on Saturday, with speeches in the two presidential primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.  Obviously, he's running.  You don't go to New Hampshire and South Carolina to announce that you're training for the senior Olympics.  Saturday is the day of the famous Ames (Iowa) straw poll, and one can ask whether Perry is trying to steal the thunder from other candidates who, unlike him, will be participating in that poll.  This coincidence of timing will not make Perry loved in certain circles.

THE GREAT STRATEGIST SPEAKS – Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts has pronounced that the cause of this nation's credit downgrade is the American military and its operations.  Frank will undoubtedly get plenty of support for this profound theory from the tofu-worshipping crowd in his congressional district.  Frank says he's now on a mission to reduce the military budget and, of course, bring the boys home.  He is a perfect example of the fact that the nutty left and the nutty right are both joining in a new isolationism.  Tried that before.  Didn't work.  Ask the gents who were at Pearl Harbor that December morning.

THE GREAT ARTIST ALSO SPEAKS – Michael Moore, who I think makes leftist-oriented movies like "Fahrenheit 911," has announced a solution to the downgrade situation.  He wants President Obama to have the managers of Standard & Poors arrested.  Among other charges, Moore claims that Standard & Poors is connected with the Bush ((!!) family.  There are many criticisms of S&P, some of them probably quite valid, but we generally, in democracies, investigate before we incarcerate.  But who said Moore ever believed in democracy?

COURAGEOUS MAYOR – Philadelphia, like other big cities, has been victimized by a series of flash mob attacks, in which gangs of African-American "youths" attack others and run through stores stealing what they wish.  (We note that they represent a very small percentage of black kids.)  Finally, Philadelphia's black mayor, Michael Nutter, has had the courage not only to impose tighter curfews in parts of the city, but has confronted the issue of race in these attacks.  No excuses, no invoking "root causes."  He has called the flash mobbers "a tiny minority of ignorant, reckless fools."  He has bluntly said that they are hurting their race.  And he has announced that parents will be held responsible if their kids violate curfews.  Solid stuff, and much needed.  Other mayors might take note.

August 8, 2011