Thank you, Captain Obvious

Robert Tracinski had a really spot-on piece in the WSJ’s Opinion Journal called Captain Obvious to the Rescue yesterday and since no one has picked up on it yet, I thought I’d just add a link and a teaser;

In my student days back at the University of Chicago, there was a campus comedy troupe modeled on Second City, their more well-known uptown uncle. The U of C group was pretty funny, if in a somewhat bookish way. (Who else does a comedy routine based on “Oedipus Rex”?) One of their funniest bits was a recurring skit about a superhero named Captain Obvious. In each scene, a character would face a mundane problem, only to be “saved” by the banal and utterly unhelpful advice offered by Captain Obvious. “I’ve locked my keys in my car. What am I going to do?” “Well then,” replies Captain Obvious, “all you have to do is open the door to your car, and then you can get your keys.” Each scene ended the same way, with Captain Obvious proclaiming, “No, don’t thank me. It’s all in a day’s work for Captain Obvious.

I’ve been reminded of this skit many times since, because I frequently hear the same kind of advice being given in Washington. Take, for example, the recommendations offered, to much fanfare, by the Iraq Study Group.

 

Category: Foreign Policy, Politics, Terror War