If you want a dose of optimism...

I'm not your guy.  At least not now.  Not yet.  But if you want something to counter last night's dose of dick-in-the-dirt pessimism,  turn to Rob Long, as he tells a tale of yore:

Halfway through the Battle of Shiloh, when an exhausted William Tecumseh Sherman met up with Ulysses Grant in a rain-soaked camp, after a brutal and bloody day of fighting, he found the Union commander sitting calmly and smoking a soggy cigar. It had been a terrible day: the Union forces were caught unprepared and off-guard, and the Confederate sneak attack had claimed many casualties and had even led to the astonishing event of a Union general taken prisoner.

Sherman approached Grant as he smoked his wet cigar. They were silent for a moment. Sherman stood there as Grant smoked thoughtfully and stared out at the rain.

"Well, Grant," Sherman finally said, "We've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

Grant nodded. Puffed at his cigar.

"Yes," he said." And then he added: "Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

The next day, the Union won a decisive victory.

Lick 'em tomorrow, though....


Perhaps a better analogy is the Democratic party, circa 2004, who sat stunned and amazed as that dummkopf, George W. Bush,  won a second term and held the House & Senate for his party.  The left was deflated, while conservative columnists wrote gleefully of an emerging permanent Republican majority (James Taranto of the WSJ, of whom I'm a big fan, is unfortunately provides a good example).

And you know what happened two years hence.  Then two years later.  Then four years after that...

But in their hubris and the drunkenness of power, the Decorations are making the same mistake we did and assuming history ends with them, today and forever.

It doesn't have to be that way.  As we learned back in 2006 and 2008, a hell of a lot can change in a very short time...and for all we know, the narcissism and folly of Barack Hussein Obama (unfortunately) may make the job much, much easier...