Lament of the aging pundit

Thomas Sowell loses it in his latest column. Here at the old folk's home we call this sort of aimless muttering, "a senior moment." Kevin Drum, among others, seizes on the money quote.

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

As Steve Benen points out, Sowell has just demonstrated that Bush Derangement Syndrome has been redefined with that contextless remark. But I thought a couple of other random musings were rather telling as well.

Is your employer poorer by the amount of money he pays you? Probably not, or you would never have been hired. Why then should we assume that a corporation or its customers are poorer by the amount paid to its chief-executive officer?

Is it even worth saying that if my employer paid me millions of dollars a year without any perfomance standards attached, he would undoubtably be much poorer for it? Probably not. But I think the last quote really sums up Sowell's problem.

I am so old that I can remember a Democrat, at his inauguration as president, say of our enemies: “We dare not tempt them with weakness.”

He's apparently so old he forgot that when you're being paid good money to write for a prestigious conservative outlet, that coherency counts. Perhaps it's time for someone to remind him that it's better to retire before you become a pitiful object of well deserved scorn.