In truth, no one knows what anyone who is not a slave to another's words is thinking -- unless he or she asks. An original person does not think in words. An original person thinks originally. Representative McCotter's words reveal him to be prone to exhibiting his partisan disposition as pretentions to mind-reading capabilities.

Mr. Obama has repeatedly had the courage and the imagination to challenge the policy addictions of every administration in the United States since Carter's. Will the tired only rebubblicans, and equally tired old demagogic rivals, now attack Mr. Obama? Of course they will. And will Mr. Obama change his policies by degrees to accommodate such truth as he and his entourage find in their criticism? We have some reason to hope so.

This "I'm sticking by my (medieval) guns" nonsense is just outdated political idiocy. While we would all prefer that our leaders stick religiously to their word so that we can kick them in the proverbials when they fail to keep their words, in practice, the world is unfolding too fast for that desire to be sensibly pandered to by any leader keeping his/her finger truly close to the pulse of events, sentiments, and needs. For that reason, principles rather than religiously consistent orations is what counts for truly wise authenticity in this era.

At this time, the world is begging for intelligence to replace what we have all been accustomed to hearing: scathingly smart-arse, second-hand, populist cookies. To inspire the world from Berlin with an assertion that "walls cannot stand" between allies and friends was good timing, good politics, good aspirations, not without some reasonable hope, and not in the slightest divisive. Is that not what civilized, decent, intelligent, and patient people -- asphyxiated by the partisan slogans of a discredited bunch of either bravadoic and greedy fools or despicable deceivers who have sullied in tribally ethnic, acrimonious, fear-and-doubt nonsense the good reputations that Americans won for themselves by feats of decency such as we last saw in the Marshall Plan and every now and then see in the achievements of the Carter Center -- has been gasping for the world over?