Protecting ourselves into Obama's poorhouse

President Barack Obama got his head handed to him Tuesday after he pulled out the old Herbert Hoover playbook and started talking about protecting American manufacturers against foreign competition.

He quickly learned that is just not how the world works any more:

Free trade requires everyone to figure out what they each do best and then do it. In today's global economy, attempting to fight the trend on international trade is always going to start a war we can't win.

So it is interesting to see a Kentucky legislator trying to prevent the state from buying American or Kentucky flags overseas. In the bailout era, the quicker we figure out that mandating purchases for non-economic reasons is a bad idea, the faster we will be able to learn the lessons the world is trying to teach us.