The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Out on a Limb

  • “Upcoming Reports Could Calm–or Validate–Recession Fears”–headline, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 16
  • “Krauthammer: ‘Ron Paul Is Not Going to Be President of the United States’ “–headline, DailyCaller.com, Aug. 16

The Big Bus
“The country’s automakers should ditch their focus on SUVs and trucks in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, President Obama said Monday,” the Hill reports:

“You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks,” Obama said during a town hall forum in Cannon Falls, Minn. “There is a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you have got to understand the market. People are going to try to save money.”

Good thing we have a president who understands business so well, or America might be struggling economically. Oh wait . . .

The president did not arrive in Cannon Falls in a Prius or one of those dinky Smart Cars. Officially, he came by “bus,” but not just any bus. The BBC calls it a “battle bus”: “Big, blocky, black, with painted-out windows, it looks more like a police mortuary van than a symbol of hope arriving on your street.”

TalkingPointsMemo.com fills us in on the options:

With President Barack Obama embarking on his mid-August tour of the midwest on Monday, the public got its first look at one of two $1.1 million armored buses that, as TPM first reported back in April, were recently purchased by the Secret Service and will be used on the campaign trail.

The bus is “an impenetrable-looking conveyance the size of a cross-country Greyhound, painted all in black, with dark tinted windows and flashing red and blue lights,” according to a Associated Press description.

TPM notes that the eventual Republican nominee will get one of these things too. You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks, as the president notes. There’s a booming market for bus-shaped armored personnel carriers too.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below ”Today’s Columnists.

(NOTE:  James Taranto is returning this afternoon.  The excerpt above is from the 8/16/11 BOTW Archives.)