Last Year's Team Player

The 2004 edition of the conventional wisdom column got Colin wrong. Here's the entry in its entirety: "The Good Soldier loses West Wing fights and never goes public about his doubts. From future prez to sad footnote." Never goes public? How bout when he said, in retrospect, he would have opposed going into Iraq? And on several other occasions, in Europe and the Middle East, Powell worked at cross-purposes with the administration, knowing always that his entire cachet depended on not being perceived as one of Bush's yes men. Puh-leezza.

Also, a chip in my brain sends a signal whenever a phrase like The Good Soldier has the wrong literary ring, in this case to Ford Maddox Ford's 1915 classic of adultery and declining morals.