"The fall of Mosul, Iraq, to al Qaeda terrorists this week is as big in its implications as Russia's annexation of Crimea. But from the Obama presidency, barely a peep. 

"Barack Obama is fiddling while the world burns. Iraq, Pakistan, Ukraine, Russia, Nigeria, Kenya, Syria. These foreign wildfires, with more surely to come, will burn unabated for two years until the United States has a new president. The one we've got can barely notice or doesn't care. ... 

"The big Obama bet is that Americans' opinion-polled 'fatigue' with the world (if not his leadership) frees him to create a progressive domestic legacy. This Friday Mr. Obama is giving a speech to the Sioux Indians in Cannon Ball, N.D., about 'jobs and education.'

"Meanwhile, Iraq may be transforming into (a) a second Syria or (b) a restored caliphate. Past some point, the world's wildfires are going to consume the Obama legacy. And leave his successor a nightmare."

"Hillary Clinton's State Department memoir, 'Hard Choices,' has just come out, and who among us can contain their excitement? ... 

"Have some sympathy for Clinton. She is an accomplished woman, but writing an exciting book about her unremarkable tenure as secretary of State would be hard enough. Doing so without throwing the president under the bus and telling other tales out of school is simply impossible."

"The email hit my in-box at 9:41 p.m. last Wednesday.  From one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington, a close adviser to the White House, the missive amounted to an electronic eye roll. 'Even I have had enough.' 

"Another Democrat had quit on President Obama. 

"The tipping point for this person was the Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl case -- not the soldier-for-Taliban swap itself as much as how the White House mishandled its obligation to communicate effectively and honestly to Congress and the public. More than that, Obama's team had failed once again to acknowledge its mistakes, preferring to cast blame and seek cover behind talking points. ...  

"[W]hen those closest to him are quitting on him, it's hard to maintain the audacity to hope that Obama will change."

"[O]n Sunday, the New York Times front page — once again indistinguishable from its self-abusing editorial pages — snarked that Bergdahl’s unit was 'known for its troubles' and that (Lord preserve us!) the soldiers in Bergdahl’s battalion, on dangerous duty at a harsh outpost, weren’t always properly attired. Well, ending the draft was great for our military, but dreadful for the country. Anyone who had served even a couple of months as a private at Fort Hood would grasp that soldiers sweating on sunbaked ground in eastern Afghanistan generally do not display the spit and polish of the Old Guard drill team performing in Washington, D.C.

"And perhaps those bold reporters from the New York Times would like to criticize the imperfect field uniforms of SEAL Team Six or our Special Forces? To their faces?"

"ON A BEACHHEAD IN FRANCE — Hitler's Atlantic wall cracked in the first hour under tempestuous allied assault. 

"As I write, deeply dug into a beachhead of northwestern France, German prisoners, mostly wounded, are streaming back. But the Boche still is putting up a terrific fight. 

"Shells are exploding all over the beach and out at sea as wave after wave of allied ships, as far as I can see, move into shore."

"This episode will be examined by congressional committees, if they can pierce the administration’s coming cover-up, which has been foreshadowed by the response to congressional attempts to scrutinize the politicization of the IRS. 

"If the military stalls on turning over files to Congress pertaining to the five years of Bergdahl’s absence, we will at least know that there is no national institution remaining to be corrupted."

"Congratulations, Mr. President! And identical congrats to your sorcerer’s apprentice, National Security Adviser Susan Rice. By trying to sell him as an American hero, you’ve turned a deserter already despised by soldiers in the know into quite possibly the most-hated individual soldier in the history of our military. 

"I have never witnessed such outrage from our troops. ... 

"Both President Obama and Ms. Rice seem to think that the crime of desertion in wartime is kind of like skipping class. They have no idea of how great a sin desertion in the face of the enemy is to those in our military. The only worse sin is to side actively with the enemy and kill your brothers in arms. This is not sleeping in on Monday morning and ducking Gender Studies 101."

"Here is the truth: The deal to trade five senior Taliban detainees to secure the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was political. It was publicly justified with lies, it breaks decades of U.S. policy, it breaks American law, it puts Americans at risk, it undermines the government of Afghanistan, and it passes responsibility on to the next administration. 

"But first of all, it was political. ... 

"Simply stated, it was because so long as Bergdahl remained in Taliban captivity in Pakistan, the Obama administration would never be able to close the chapter of the failed Afghanistan campaign it has owned since approving — and then under-resourcing — a surge of U.S. forces in the country."

"(CNN) -- The sense of pride expressed by officials of the Obama administration at the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is not shared by many of those who served with him -- veterans and soldiers who call him a deserter whose 'selfish act' ended up costing the lives of better men. ...  

"Questions surround the circumstances of Bergdahl's disappearance. Conflicting details have since emerged about how the militants managed to capture Bergdahl. Published accounts have varied widely, from claims he walked off the post to another that he was grabbed from a latrine.

"According to first-hand accounts from soldiers in his platoon, Bergdahl, while on guard duty, shed his weapons and walked off the observation post with nothing more than a compass, a knife, water, a digital camera, and a diary.

"At least six soldiers were killed in subsequent searches for Bergdahl, and many soldiers in his platoon said attacks seemed to increase against the United States in Paktika Province in the days and weeks following his disappearance."

"The Veterans Administration scandal involves charges of manipulation and falsification of medical waiting lists and systemwide rigging to hide delayed or inadequate treatment, which may have caused the deaths of some of those waiting for care. There are whistle-blowers, allegations of local coverups, and the possibility of criminal charges. Also becoming clearer are two motives for those involved in what appears to have been a racket: their compensation and their career trajectories. 

"This scandal won't go away as others have, because all America is united in this thought: We care about our military veterans. We've asked a great deal of them, and they have a right to expect a great deal from us. Also, everyone in America knows what it's like to go to a bureaucracy when you're in need and get jerked around and ignored. 

"The scandal also prompts this thought: Barack Obama is killing the reputation of government. He is killing the thing he loves through insufficient oversight. He doesn't do the plodding, unshowy, unromantic work of making government work. In the old political formulation, he's a show horse, not a workhorse."