From a reader:
You wrote in the Corner “Where were these people during the fires in 2003? Were those Clinton’s fault, or did it take only two years for Bush to cause them?” Forget 2003 – how about 1971? Those were the first big wildfires in my memory, I was 9. Just like last week the eastern part of San Diego County was on fire. A lot less people lived here then, so a lot less people had to evacuate. I suppose President Bush could have caused those fires as well. Perhaps while he was shirking his duties in the National Guard he was setting fires. Perhaps Dan Rather can find a memo with proof of this.
Update I:
Those fires were Nixon’s fault.
Update II:
Perhaps the fires actually spread, slowly, to SoCal from the 1950s church burnings in Arkansas that Clinton remembers so vividly from his youth — seared…seared into his memory. (I know am mixing megalomaniacal made-up memory metaphors here, but what the heck.)