Fallon Insubordination?

A big news day.

--Barack Obama won yesterday's Mississippi primary. The exit poll shows an electorate more racially polarized than any we have seen this year, with more than 90 percent of black voters backing Obama and more than 72 percent of whites backing Hillary Clinton. This should be no surprise. In presidential general elections, Mississippi has been the most racially polarized state in the nation.

--New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has announced his resignation.

--Adm. William Fallon has announced he is resigning as head of Central Command. An article by Thomas P. M. Barnett in Esquire, released last week, depicts Fallon as singlehandedly preventing George W. Bush from taking military action against Iran. This sounds very much like insubordination. Max Boot has an interesting take. I may write about this in my Creators Syndicate column for next week. We have seen individuals in the State Department and the intelligence community work to undermine administration policy, but it's quite another thing for a career military officer to do so. Most members of the military believe strongly in the principle of civilian control; Admiral Fallon seems to have taken a different view.

By Michael Barone