Harry the Great

WWII buffs, particularly those who have read and seen sagas of POW's (from Hogan's Heroes to Stalag 17 to The Great Escape) will enjoy this link to Tunnel Harry. This link forwarded to me by RAH, whose father was one of the heroes of WWII.

To the Victor

Victor Davis Hanson offers his take on GWB here. Somewhat more positive that Murdock's, offered below.

I've personally found the media coverage of the past few days absolutely intolerable. There's the swooning Koolaid-drinkers of the far left and mainstream media (pardon the redundancy), and the nitpicking nabobs of negativism on talk radio that are launching premptive strikes before the moving vans have unloaded. I'll match my VRWC credentials against anybody, but I'd at least like to see the ink dry on the cabinet papers before we get too carried away.

NRO has been somewhat of a refuge, providing both candid coverage of the outgoing administration, and surprisingly positive commentary on the new one, as old friend Jonah Goldberg writes here.

That being said, I do think this Geithner thing is going to come back to haunt BHO. He should have pulled the plug on this one. But that would have been too drastic of a change.

The final legacy of the second Bush administration will be the Obama administration, and we'll see what kind of legacy that will be. But whatever our complaints against the former president, we have to thank him for keeping us safe for 2,688 days, for dealing with a nearly incomprehensible crisis, and for making the tough decisions when the chances of success were slim. Thank you, Mr. President. May history judge you with greater fairness than your contemporaries.

Parting Shots

DeRoy Murdock presents a detailed criticism of the outgoing administration on NRO.

I have long maintained -- and Murdock seems to agree -- that the central flaw of Bush II was a failure to communicate (with apologies to Cool Hand Luke).

Or, as Steve Taylor once said ("Bouquet") -- "Nothing's sadder than the words, 'what might have been.'" (FYI the above link has the lyrics wrong).

Bye, bye, 2008

The year in review covered here.

My favorite moments appear at 2:59, 4:25 and 6:29.