Tipsheet

"One President at a Time"

CNN commentator David Gergen -- whose opinions are usually pretty friendly toward Barack -- has made the point that Barack should have kept his talks with Maliki private, noting that we "only have one president at a time."

Of course, given Barack's manifest ambition, it's not all that surprising that he would use his talks as press release fodder (after all, why not film a campaign commercial or two during the trip?), although Gergen's right -- it is unbecoming.

The problem, however, is that with Barack, it's never clear:  Is it just overweening ambition, or is it ineptness and inexperience that's really at work?