Readers of this blog know I've held the view since its takeover that this Administration's ideological incompetence is likely to represent the tipping point, the end of the American era.

I hate to be continually reaffirmed in that opinion.

Why wouldn't someone in this sclerotic group have thought that the best possible response to yesterday's destruction of the Askariya Shrine in Iraq was to publically pledge $x billion from our Treasury to rebuild it?

And to announce that we will help rebuild it every time it is destroyed?

We've already spent a trillion on this disaster; think of how much goodwill we could have bought with a simple statement...