It hasn't been a good couple of days for George W. Bush.

This editorial appeared in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times:

Almost three decades ago, a new pope still in his 50s captivated Americans during a triumphant tour that took him to Washington, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Des Moines. Last week, America was visited by a different sort of pope -- a soft-spoken octogenarian -- with a less ambitious itinerary. But, like John Paul II's 1979 tour, Benedict XVI's visit to New York and Washington was a success beyond the opportunity it afforded the bishop of Rome to pray with the faithful.

The following editorial appeared in Tuesday's Washington Post:

Last month, NATO sent a muddled message to Ukraine and Georgia, fragile European democracies that are seeking membership in the Western alliance. Pressed by President Bush, a NATO summit meeting issued a statement declaring that the two countries "will become members of NATO" someday. But the alliance also deferred the requests of their governments for "membership action plans," the bureaucratic vehicle for joining, at the insistence of France and Germany -- which made it clear they were deferring to Russian objections.

The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Saturday:

Kenya's new Cabinet, sworn in Thursday, will have to rebuild a country riven by tribal clashes in the violence that followed December's elections. It will have to restore trust between neighbors turned blood enemies. It will have to resettle the hundreds of thousands of Kenyans who were uprooted by the riots and who remain refugees in their own country. And it will have to contain the Mungiki gang -- a violent outfit that in the last week has brought renewed bloodshed and terror to an already traumatized nation.

Economic theories come in many flavors. There are supply-siders and deficit hawks, monetarists and Marxists. As Richard Nixon once said, and the recent bipartisan bout of economic pump-priming proved, "We are all Keynesians now." John McCain has devised yet another approach to the dismal science -- "that was then, this is now."

On the Web

Imagine a world of streets lined with video cameras that alert authorities to any suspicious activity. A world where police officers can read the minds of potential criminals and arrest them before they commit any crimes. A world in which a suspect who lies under questioning gets caught immediately because his brain has given him away.

Victoria Prunty knows women like this, wearing their long pioneer dresses and talking on TV last week about how much they miss the children that the state of Texas took from them amid allegations of abuse.