While I have mixed emotions...

...about the 'Greatest Generation' label, my admiration for the men who hit the beaches of Normandy 60 years ago is unrestrained. Their actions deserve the recognition of the current President as they would any. What's galling is his attempts in recent days to draw paralels between their war and his, or between the leadership of those trying days and his own inept performance.

As you hear reports of his words during his European visit, this comment from Newsweek's Christopher Dickey (via Atrios) is worth bearing in mind.

...only speechmakers from coddled, comfortable backgrounds who’ve never heard a shot fired in anger, much less seen “dead men by mass production,” would dare use the blood of those who died at Normandy 60 years ago to try to cleanse their conscience of those dying in Iraq today.

And only a mouthpiece from a similar background with a similar dearth of experience under fire would consider using those words.

As Atrios says, indeed.

Amen, even.