Centers of power

London's Daily Mirror features a story by a reporter who risked a $1,000 kidnapping and beheading to find the hot running water and a separate power supply in bin Laden's old bunker, just outside Kandahar. Now, it's occupied by pit vipers and rotting human body parts.

Washington Post, meanwhile, ran a story on fatigue in the White House:

Of all the reasons that President Bush is in trouble these days, not to be overlooked are inadequate REM cycles. Like chief of staff Card, many of the president's top aides have been by his side nonstop for more than five years, not including the first campaign, recount and transition. This is a White House, according to insiders, that is physically and emotionally exhausted, battered by scandal and drained by political setbacks.

Wow. Are we actually getting told now that since the Bush White House is tired, they're going to start making mistakes?

I think what the Bush White House is missing at this point would by a Jimmy Carter-esque wonderment that the Presidency may be too big for any man. That would require, of course, that Bush can put away his arrogance and admit to failure. Sadly, then, he's lacking so much of what made one of America's least successful presidents one of it's best ex-presidents. Witness, from a farewell address by Carter:

We live in a time of transition, an uneasy era which is likely to endure for the rest of this century. During the period we may be tempted to abandon some of the time-honored principles and commitments which have been proven during the difficult times of past generations. We must never yield to this temptation. Our American values are not luxuries, but necessities - not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.