"Has any single American of this century done more harm than Robert McNamara?"

"No one comes readily to mind. Yes, Lyndon Johnson bears greater responsibility for the damage done the nation by the Vietnam War. But McNamara is a Renaissance man. Before he helped ruin the American polity, he helped ruin the American economy, pioneering at Ford the bloodless, numbers-oriented management methods that helped bring so many corporations to their knees. After Vietnam, as head of the World Bank, he helped ruin the entire world's economy, shoveling out billions of dollars to fund failed 'development' projects. It's a tough record to match."

So wrote Mickey Kaus, in 1995.

Via Jac, who — like me in yesterday's McNamara obit-post — praises the Errol Morris documentary, "The Fog of War."

Robert S. McNamara, dead at 93.

"The war became his personal nightmare. Nothing he did, none of the tools at his command — the power of American weapons, the forces of technology and logic or the strength of American soldiers — could stop the armies of North Vietnam. He concluded well before leaving the Pentagon that the war was futile, but he did not share that insight with the public until late in life."

Here's an excerpt from the great Errol S. Morris documentary "Fog of War":