As the war grinds on, with news of what I hope we won't soon be calling "Camp Tonkin" on the Iran/Iraq border, we turn briefly toward more frivolous pursuits. Which, in New England, are not quite as diverting as they used to be, this time of year.

I speak, of course, of the Patriots --- the formerly feel-good, nice-guy football team which decided, this spring, that Randy Moss was a nice guy. Well, heck --- he wouldn't be the first well-known malcontent who calmed down and succeeded with the Pats. But, but, but...

The Red Sox fan line about Yankee fans is that rooting for a team with a record like that has got to be like rooting for General Motors. I may be a fool for paying attention to this stuff, but I'm not a hypocrite. The Pats have gotten a lot less interesting to me personally lately, because rooting for them has felt like rooting for General Motors. Or, yet more recently, rooting for Enron...

Update: The modern Pats fan explains why the team is annoying. Most people who do find them genuinely annoying would concur...

When asked who's best to decide Iraq policy, Americans overwhelmingly believe it's the military leadership, not Congress or the White House. And I'm sure Dubya agrees completely.

Why shouldn't he? When the generals on the ground in Iraq --- Casey and Abizaid --- thought his "surge" was a dumb idea, he fired them both. I'm sure he replaced them with people he can absolutely trust.