Daniel Larison notes the problem with Mitt Romney's (indeed, many Republicans') view of foreign policy: They view everything as "them or us" and think it's a sign of weakness to talk to "them."

Fred Kaplan, the only human being in the country who actually reads military budgets, explains why Paul Ryan doesn't understand military budgets. I admit I don't either except that I suspect there's truth in this formula I was told years ago…

That one-third of every U.S. military budget is for necessary expenditures to deal with any possible security need;

That one-third goes to stuff that doesn't or will never work or be needed;

And that one-third goes for toys that our leaders think would be cool to have in a Top Gun sense and which we also will never need or use.

I also remember an anecdote Tip O'Neill used to tell. Some defense-oriented Congressman with much clout in this area wanted to order dozens of a new fighter plane that some company proposed making. Let's call it the Q-1. O'Neill amassed some pretty firm data that showed the Q-1 was a lemon that would consume billions and would never fly. He presented it to the Congressman and suggested, "Instead of wasting all that money on that piece of junk, let's put it into the V-2, which is a superior plane in every way."

The Congressman's response? "We have to have both of them!" (He later accused O'Neill of being "soft on defense" for not wanting to order the Q-1.)

Joe Conason on the troublesome lack of ethics out of the Supreme Court.

We continue to be amused by all these attempts to argue that "Republicans don't want Romney" as he continues along, winning way more Republican votes than anybody else.

Last weekend when my radio dial chanced to loiter in the political talk segment of SiriusXM, I heard a little of an interview with a gent who was high up in the campaign of Rick Santorum. I didn't catch his name but he made the expected "it ain't over 'til it's over" point, then made two which struck me as contradictory. One was to cite a list of folks who were running behind at this point in a past election but who still went on to win the nomination. In other words, just because a guy (say, Santorum) doesn't have all the necessary delegates at this stage doesn't mean he won't win.

Okay. But then as he went into attack mode against Mitt Romney, he was talking about how Romney "can't close the deal with voters," which is proof they really don't want him and he can't win an election. In other words, just because a guy (say, Romney) doesn't have all the necessary delegates at this stage…well, that indicates he can't and won't win.

Santorum's rep was also trying to argue that all Romney has going for him is "the mantle of inevitability." Or to put it another way, people who really don't want him are voting for him because they hear other people are voting for him. I don't know how much truth there is in that. It seems to me Romney was leading the pack from the start, well before he could possibly have been viewed as "inevitable." But even if he is coasting on his frontrunner status, that's the way a lot of people win elections…and another way of saying, "A lot of people aren't voting for Rick Santorum because he looks like a loser."

Marv Wolfman informs me I reversed the dates of when he and Len Wein made their first sales to the comic book industry. I have corrected the relevant sentence in the previous item.

Ah, I have a question here from Larry Morra, who I enjoyed meeting down at WonderCon…

I understand you've been to every Comic-Con in San Diego. A lot of people tell me it's changed greatly since the old days at the El Cortez. Do you miss the old convention? Would you rather it was like that again?

Yes and no. I went to the first San Diego comic convention in 1970. This was before it was called Comic-Con International. It was the San Diego Golden State Comic-Con and I've been to every one since.

But let me back off a tiny bit from that brag. The first con, which ran for three days, was preceded by a one-day event as kind of a warm-up/audition. I wasn't there for that. I have also missed a few days of the con over the years. I was only present for one day of the first one. Then in the eighties, there were a few years when professional commitments caused me to miss either the first day or the last. One year, f'rinstance, I missed Day One because a TV show I'd written was taping that afternoon. Then in '88, the big vote to end the Writers Guild strike of that year was held on Sunday in L.A. and I felt I had to be there so I drove home late on Saturday night.

And I recall either one or two years, also in the eighties, when I chose to miss the first day. I started to get a little bored with not only Comic-Con but any comic convention. I think my interest renewed when they began to ask me to do so many panels and — and this is key — when I got over a few mental hurdles relating to how the con was changing. I loved those old cons at the El Cortez and a few other venues. I think as the con evolved, I had the wrong attitude for a time, which was to reject the new wonders it had to offer and to resent that the old con was going away.

It's a mistake I believe I've made in many aspects of my life, not just San Diego Cons. The world changes and whether it's for good or ill, you have to at least be open to changing with it. If your favorite Italian restaurant suddenly converts to Chinese, there's no point in getting pissed-off that you can't get a decent Rigatoni Bolognese in that building anymore. The change might not be for the better but the Shrimp Chow Fun might also be darned good.

No, Comic-Con is not the same thing it used to be…and guess what! The comic book companies aren't what they were in 1977, either. Some who work at them would tell you they aren't even comic book companies anymore. They're multimedia content producers and one of the forms for which they produce content is comic books. When someone complains to me that there's minimal attention paid to comics at the convention, I tell them, "Hey, there's minimal attention paid to comics in the Marvel booth!" And actually, I think there's plenty at that con about comics. You just have to take five minutes to study the floor plan and the programming schedule. Oh — and you have to remember that the world is changing…

I used to host an annual event at Comic-Con called the Golden Age Panel. We don't do it anymore and at every con, someone comes up to me and says they wish we still had one…and sometimes they think it's because the con doesn't care about "those old guys" or I don't care about "those old guys." The sad truth that I have to explain to them is that we're running out of "those old guys." Many have died. Some are unable to attend due to physical reasons. Some just plain don't want to. At WonderCon, an attendee asked me why there was no Golden Age Panel. Easy answer: There were no Golden Age people. Can't have a Golden Age Panel without at least two of them.

Unless Stan Lee snuck in for a surprise appearance — and I didn't hear that he did — the three people at that convention who'd been in comics the longest were Marv Wolfman (he started in 1967), Len Wein (1968) and me (1970). We wouldn't even qualify as a Silver Age Panel, let alone a Golden Age Panel. The con invited a few veterans and didn't get any takers. Last year at San Diego, I only knew of three people attending the con — three out of 130,000 or so — who were in comics before Kennedy was shot: Stan Lee, Ramona Fradon and Jerry Robinson. It looks a little better for this year. We might even be able to scrape together a Golden Age Panel…but if we do, it will likely be the last.

I don't mention this to be maudlin or to act like we can do something about this. The point is we can't, just as we can't stop a lot of things around us from changing. I know too many people who seem to think there are two ways to turn back time. One is to orbit the Earth counter-clockwise at light speed. The other way is to sit around and moan about "the good old days" and how everything is going to hell. They're about equally effective. Far better to look at Today and see what it has to offer that might be, if not better, then almost as good.

Which is not to say there's no point in looking back to see what good stuff of the past can be prolonged or even re-created. There's an event coming up later this year that's going to try to do some of that regarding comics and conventions, and I'm optimistic it will succeed. I'll tell you all about it as soon as I get the time to write another long post here.

David Javerbaum with the Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney.

My own theory is a little simpler. It's that some time ago, Romney heard that the way to win votes is to tell the public what they want to hear. So he's on a relentless mission to make sure that at some point during the campaign, every single voter in America hears just what they want to hear from him…at least once.