Remember the Viet Nam war? I know, we’ve been suffering with the most recent military cock-up, but it’s still worth looking back at what evil old Tricky Dick was up to. A new batch of tape transcripts from White House discussions about the war have been released, and wouldn’t you know it — Nixon was engineering the defeat, putting pressure on the South Vietnamese government to accept a settlement that would lead to failure, but would at least postpone defeat until after the American elections.

Did I really need to be reminded that practically my entire lifelong exposure to American politics has been a history of contemptible screw-ups?