(Editor’s note: The following was intended to be a reasoned, coherent essay on the current state of affairs. Unfortunately, I’m better at ranting.)
What’s happening in the Middle East? Damfino. Robert Darnton thinks it’s 1789. Ann Applebaum thinks it’s 1848. If Ann’s right, things ought to be pretty tight all around the Mediterranean around the year 2150 or so. Take that, Caesar Augustus!
But what about the home front? Well, I had hoped to comment on Obama’s State of the Union address, but I guess I got behind the eight ball on the one, at least as far as timeliness goes. As far as what the President actually said, well, I think it was politically sound, but what I think he really meant was this:
“I will close my eyes now, and when I open them a year from now, this is what I’m going to see:
Unemployment, 8 percent and dropping;
Stock market, well above 12,000 and climbing;
War in Afghanistan, no worse than now;
National debt, whatever.
That’s what I want to see, because if I see that, I’ll be reelected, and the rest is noise.”
