High in the Sacramento Mountains,

just across the Tularosa Basin from where I live, is Sunspot, a solar observatory. I have no idea how the thing actually works, but it is a big deal. On a visit to Sunspot a few years ago, the scientist in charge pointed out that he has international students, doctoral candidates from around the world who come to New Mexico to study solar flares, sunspots, and whatever else they can see with telescopes trained on the sun.

My understanding is that, from deep underground, a long, narrow tube follows the sun. Telescopes pointing through this long tube offer a view of the sun shielded from extraneous light from all directions. I often think of Sunspot when I hear news from Washington, as it seems that some politicians look at the world through a long, narrow tube, seeing nothing but their image of what lies straight ahead.

They are blind to inevitable "side effects" as the pharmaceutical companies call those "unintended consequences" lurking just off to one side. And, of course, they are completely blind to what is behind them... that something called history.

These politicians persist in the belief that they are the first ever to advance their current idea - despite the fact that the same idea has been tried and has failed in the past.

After decades of government watching, I am no longer surprised by young fools who believe in ideas that old fools scrapped long ago. The failed ideas, they may believe, need only their magic touch to succeed.

Not surprised. Only saddened.