An unnamed State Dept. individual tells PowerLine Blog how bad things are in Georgia and how badly we are reacting, Asking if we had noticed that “Secretary Rice and President Bush’s responses have virtually mirrored Senator Obama’s recommendations,” he says, “It is heaps of shame on the current administration for letting a close ally dangle like this, and is instructive of just how bad an Obama foreign policy would be.”

He concludes:

In a way, this attack is very similar to the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. Iran terrorized a helpless group of people to humiliate the US. I believe that is what is going on here.

The US is typically slow to respond to shocks like this. We still have time to redeem ourselves. However, it appears that our foreign policy has taken a decisively Carter-esque turn. Iran has witnessed US acquiescence to their proxy Hezbollah taking over Lebanon. We’ve done little about their militias killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our enemies are learning that there is virtually nothing that will evoke an American response.

Let’s hope that this brings back some of some of that first-term President Bush. Otherwise, surely bad things will follow. President Bush sees himself as a bold, Trumanesque President. It’s time for a bold response like the Berlin Airlift.

Oh my.

“I’ve never seen the media as much entranced by a candidate as they were in my very first campaign, in 1960, when they were for JFK,” Robert Novak told Bill O’Reilly in June, weeks before his retirement after being diagnosed with brain tumor.

“But I’m telling you right now, the enchantment with Obama beats the JFK syndrome,” he said. “It is just such a feel-good atmosphere of my colleagues, my senior colleagues, people I’ve known for years. And I get it from some of the young people, too. They just feel this is such a wonderful thing, in the first place to have an African-American candidate, nominee, but also one that makes them feel so wonderful.”

John Fund, Novak’s first hire as a young reporter, comments:

Bob Novak rarely felt “wonderful” about any candidate, acknowledging to me at a dinner just last month that the only president he ever covered who proved to be a success was Ronald Reagan. “Put not your faith in princes,” he told me, paraphrasing the Bible. “Principles and ideas do matter a lot in the world, but politicians usually just use them on the way to disappointing you.”

It’s in WSJ.com’s Political Diary for last Tuesday, 8/5.