Snakes on a plane

Going to Turkey to lick Erdogan's boots. I guess Pompeo doesn't really want to be president, despite reports that he does.

Pence ditto.

Trump really has a genius for humiliating people around him.

* * *

Reports say we bombed our own base in Syria, in order to deny munitions to the Turks or the Arabs or the Russians or the Iranians or whoever gets there first. I hope theAir Force aimed this time, but I doubt it.

I am reminded of the burning of the Navy's oil tanks at Cavite Navy Yard as the Japanese attacked Manila. That, too, came under the leadership of a first-in-his-class graduate of West Point. At civilian colleges, graduating first usually indicates smarts, but at West Point not so much.

The lieutenant who torched the tanks at Cavite wondered for weeks whether he would be commended or court-martialed. (In the background as I type this, Adm. Stavridis is saying that the bombing has the flavor of the skedaddle from Saigon.)

I'm pretty sure no one will be commended for this week's attack.

* * *

Wonkette has been rather dull over the summer but the collapse of Trump seems to have perked up the humorists:

UncleTravelingMatt •

If the Kurds are more of a terrorist threat than ISIS, maybe we shouldn't have double-crossed them.