Every time I read the papers

That old feeling comes on;

We're waist deep in the Big Muddy

And the big fool says to push on.

I find myself haunted these days by Pete Seeger's antiwar anthem of 1967, written when it had become evident to Seeger and many others (although not yet to me) that the United States was engaged in an enterprise certain to end in disaster and dishonor. The Big Muddy was Vietnam. The big fool committed to blindly pushing on was President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Today Seeger's lyrics possess an ironic resonance. The United States once more finds itself stuck in a perplexing military misadventure, this one dating from 2001 and known initially as the Global War on Terrorism. Once more we have a bona fide fool in the White House, one whose antics make LBJ look like a font of acumen and good sense.