No, I’m talking about Robert McNamara, one of my particular historical nemeses, considering the number of important things that he messed up, destroyed or ruined. Not to mention the uncountable dead.

Jonathan Blaque on the piloting deficiencies of John Sidney McCain III.  Me, I worry more about his deficiencies as a fiscal steward in the same irresponsible levels as all of those bond rating outfits that lived off the fees from the people they rated and gave the impression to people that bulls**t mortgage derivatives were gold-plated sure things.

Of course, if I say that I don’t make any money, but my wife is a gazillionaire who loans me planes to ride in for my political efforts - and I pass out my tax returns, but hers have to remain private for the sake of the kids’ privacy…say what?

Mutual funds are another story. Cindy McCain—or someone advising her—is trying to make a lot of money through active mutual-fund trading. She has between $600,000 and $1.25 million invested in three mutual funds run by the American Funds Group, which is anything but conservative. They are investing for high growth and paying high loads (sales charges) to do it—an expensive strategy that seems to have won the couple some money in the past but does not look promising so far this year.

No doubt, because mutual funds are starting to tank.  The disaster presided over by Bush called the US economy is going to hell in a handbasket, and McCain’s right beside him with an everything is fine response for the base’s happy-happy place.

You may not agree on which Democrat should take him on, but I’m convinced that the man is a total disaster.

AP and the BBC are both reporting that the Vietnamese government just decided to cut off adoptions of Vietnamese orphans to American citizens, closing down contacts with 42 US adoption agencies.  The US Government just put out a report that there was widespread baby-stealing and baby-selling going in in Vietnam for the ‘U.S. market’, so to speak, at around $10,000 a kid.  The Vietnamese government, rather than look into the matter, exploded and cut off the arrangements for the US on all adoptions.

I feel horrible for the US families who were in the line to adopt and are left with nothing after all of their hope, but more horrible for any Vietnamese families who did get forced into handing over kids to brokers for ’sale’.