How can one side be right when they are both wrong? -- Doug Steley

My memory of Yosemite Sam is of a feisty little cartoon character shooting off his six guns and jumping up and down as he tried to jab his elbow into some tall galoot's side. Sam's ineffectual attempts to best his adversaries were humorous; Ehud Olmert's are not.

Jonathan Freedland, A war with no winners, has this to say:

Professor Eyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University says Israelis could not tolerate "military failure" against both the Palestinians and Hezbollah: "There comes a point when you cannot stand it any more." Some governments might have been able to resist such pressure. But not this one, for Israel is now led, for the first time, by both a Prime Minister and Defence Minister whose path into politics did not go through the army. Ehud Olmert and his coalition partner, Labour leader Amir Peretz, are military novices. Both have something to prove.

So Ariel Sharon could negotiate a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah in 2004, rather than bombing them from the sky, because he had no fear of being branded weak. Olmert and Peretz, by contrast, need to assert themselves. Hence Olmert's declaration that "we will demolish them and nothing is going to hold us back". And the Defence Minister's vow that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah "will remember the name Amir Peretz for the rest of his life". In that mood, neither man was likely to rein in Israel's ambitious chief of staff, Dan Halutz. Instead, say the Israeli commentariat, there are "three Napoleons" running the show.

An inexperienced greenhorn gets promoted when the crusty old sheriff kicks the bucket and immediately comes under the spell of the mustachio-twirling cattle and land barons.

Olmert is not alone as a caricature of a leader. Australia's John Howard is a ringer for Alfred E. Neuman, while George W. Bush is somewhere between Clem Kadiddlehopper and Mortimer Snerd.

Hopeless.

-- Chet LaMerde