Half-Drunken Time Travel

As you know, part of the 21st Century Social Contract is that the first person to gain access to a working time machine has to go back and kill Hitler. Preferably before he reaches apex Hitler. You may choose to take him down in, say, 1914; he's easy enough to spot (the guy knew how to stick to a look). If you're really lazy, you could opt to take on Hitler circa 1895. I mean, how easy would that be? No matter what age Hitler I got, I'd rub a little dog shit on his upper lip, indulging in some irony that literally no one will ever get because he's not going to live long enough to tarnish an already ugly mustache (by the way, this would also save Michael Jordan from later inflicting this upon himself and the world). And whatever you do: don't just leave Hitler for dead. You don't want to run the chance that he'll survive, get some hyper-advanced prostheses (Nazi scientists), and come back even angrier than before. Then you're responsible for Steampunk Hitler.

The only trouble is, this option is an easy out on the admittedly annoying  "what would you do with a time machine" question. You're not going to use the thing once, surely. Especially not after the kick-ass job you just did saving history. So. How do you celebrate killing Hitler?

I'd start by going back to 1527 and challenging Henry VIII to a drinking contest. Bare in mind: I'm not picking this fight to win control of the not yet extant Anglican Church, or anything; I just need to know how well I'd do.

At this point, I--drunk out of my mind and undoubtedly having forgotten that I've already killed Hitler--would try to kill Hitler again. Upon seeing my past self doing just that, however, I would probably  become confused and disoriented and would have to sit down until my head stopped throbbing. I'm speculating here, but drinking while time traveling cannot do wonders for the cognitive faculties in the short term.

Once my head is clearer, I'd take in a dinosaur fight or two. Because so would you.

Then I'd head over to 1953 and find a young Donald Trump. And I'd be nice to him, really nice. I'd play with him for a few hours, offering to do whatever he wanted to do. And just before we parted ways, never to see each other again, I'd give little Donald a great big hug, look him in the eye, and tell him that he's a really good, sweet kid and that no one can ever take that away from him. 

Feeling good about myself, I'd finish my journey by jumping to 1690, where I'd promptly take credit for composing Pachelbel's Canon in D. Now, another man might use that status to get all kinds of syphilitic 17th Century ass. But, having seen dinosaur fights, I would know there's more to live for than easy, Enlightenment Era orgies. I just want the credit for creating modern pop music. Plus, marriage vows probably apply across time and space.

Of course, here and there, you have to stop and check out the important things. Be in the room when Johannes Gutenberg first explains his invention (to a smart person). See Lincoln at work in the Oval Office (the man just let people wander in, as though no one was looking to waste him). Hear The Beatles record "Love Me Do." Be at NASA headquarters for the Moon landing. Convince a teen-aged Park Jae-sang to go to med school instead of pursuing a career in music.

These are some of history's seminal moments. Missing those would be like walking by the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and not stopping in to check on Oscar Wilde's grave. Or walking by the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and not stopping in to spit on Jim Morrison's grave. These are the drab must-dos of time travel. Or, to put it another way, the things people expect you to tell them about when you return, so that you can't be accused of wasting your time. This category is not to be confused with the things that may seem like wastes to other people, but that made all the difference to you in ways that would be impossible to explain to someone else.

Time travel, like life, is filled with the things we must do, the things that will define who we have been. And those things will get done. But fully ignoring the things we want to do deprives us of a fuller journey that gives the must-dos purpose and meaning. It's like science and art; one we need, the other we wouldn't want to live without. Put yet another way: Doc Brown's orthodox sense of responsibility and Marty McFly's caution-to-the-wind sensibility are disastrous separately. Together, they make each other worthwhile. Occasionally these two categories will overlap into a beautiful amalgam and you'll get to kill Hitler or watch raptors wail on each other. But the rest of the time, we have to find the balance.

Oh, bring a T-Rex to 1914 to kill Hitler! Yes. Nailed it.

Thanksgiving Kills The Expectations Game

Thanksgiving is the most underrated holiday. This is not to be confused with "the best holiday." Thanksgiving, in fact, earns most underrated because no one ever expects it to be the best.

Think about Thanksgiving. All those extra portions you wish you could eat the rest of the year, but think better of? Jiminy Cricket is visiting family for the day, so everything goes. Annoying dinner guests? Tryptophan is a miracle drug--if they can fight through a coma, you might want to consider inviting an exorcist, too. You have to watch the Lions? View it as an exercise in schadenfreude: "take that, Michigan; produce Mitt Romney, will you?" The annual embarrassment of seeing the President pardoning a turkey? Think of it as the best argument for legalizing pot (it makes so much more sense when you're high). And, yes, the Black Friday nonsense and looming Christmas pressure hanging over everyone because Santa can't keep his bitch mittens to himself. But I'd wager that I'm not the only private sector employee who gets the day off just because his boss hasn't yet discovered that Black Friday deals can be found online.

You may have noticed that there's some significant qualifying and hedging going on here, but that's the point of comparative ratings. Especially as they apply to the expectations game. I'm not arguing that Thanksgiving is perfect; I'm not sure any healthy and fulfilled adult is. But no one in history has ever had their pristine perception of Thanksgiving shattered by having a bad one. Charlie Brown never worried himself into an hilariously premature ulcer about the corruption of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving wins because, like going to a Judd Apatow movie, you go in with middling expectations, you get what you expect, and you leave happy.

And consider the competition. Proceeding chronologically from today:

Christmas is clearly the most overrated holiday, so we can throw that out immediately. And I don't have a lot of direct experience with Chanukah, but being perennially stuck in Christmas' obese shadow doesn't help; you know why there was no Chanukah door in The Nightmare Before Christmas? Trick question: there was a Chanukah door. You just couldn't see it through the Elven black magic laid down by the fat man. As for Kwanzaa, you know there's a problem when Futurama has covered you better than anyone ever--and even that ended up having more to do with giant space bees than holiday send-ups.

New Year's is a fine holiday. Taking off the day after the celebration? Brilliant. And that move nearly gives New Year's the win. But the holiday is ranked about where it should be, given that the celebration has to cover for the disappointment of Christmas. New Year's does that job admirably, but it's a steep hill. Maybe if we could do New Year's as well as the Scots...

Then we get into the slushy soup of the late Winter holidays. MLK Day: good, if you get the day off, which I don't. Super Bowl: I'll admit that this one hasn't been the same for me since I had to endure that Packers-Steelers match-up a few years back, but when you consider that the best-played games of recent memory were the twin Giants-Patriots match-ups, it really underlines the bittersweetness of the day. President's Day: kind of a gip, even for those of us too young to remember when that was two holidays. Groundhog Day: who the fuck are you kidding?

Then we get St. Paddy's. Look, I'm half-Irish and (probably not entirely coincidentally) I like to drink. So I kinda get this one. But if you're the type to hit up an Irish pub on St. Paddy's, you're begging for an underwhelming night (you may also be a tool). They're all crawling with green-clad drunks making a mockery of Irish culture. And while a non-Irish bar is marginally better, it never feels right, does it? And then you're expected to show up at work the next day... hangover or no. That's called entrapment. There's a recent movement underway to get March 17th made into a federal holiday, which would be nice but, as with New Year's, shouldn't we aim for the day after?

And that would be a good time for another holiday, during the long Spring slog between President's Day and Memorial Day. Not that Memorial Day is much of a contender. According to my rigorous market research (hint: it's all about projection), if you're reading this blog, you're the type to take Memorial Day for granted and feel guilty about it, but not guilty enough to actually do anything. So you spend the last day of your three day weekend in a funk.

The Fourth of July: another very good holiday that tends to get rated exactly as it should. Unless something magical happens, which no one can fairly expect. So that one's out.

Labor Day: see Memorial Day, except apply this more broadly to an American public that's blithely ignored the systematic neutering of the labor movement. Honestly, I'm surprised Labor Day hasn't yet been moved to Black Friday, just to rub some salt in the wound. But that would screw with the beginning of the school year, which is exactly why the day never reaches public acclaim: kids get conditioned to know what's coming and that wiring remains intact through adulthood.

I've already covered one of Halloween's major pitfalls. The expectation-to-satisfaction ratio for Halloween often seems to approach Christmas levels.

And then Veterans' Day: see Memorial Day. Also, not a universal day off.

Which leaves us with Thanksgiving: the feast day smart enough not to promise you the world. It tampers down your expectations and apologizes for not having done better. It stands amidst the onslaught of the end-of-the-year holidays and does... alright. Enjoy today. If for nothing else then because at no point all year will your expectations be so thoroughly matched.

Cut It Out, Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh. Explanation please:

You've worn these things twice now. Stop it.

I think I speak for all Bears fans when I say that the best news I heard at the start of this season was that the Bears would no longer be wearing these monstrosities. If we can do it, so can you.

David Petraeus (Ret.), Reality TV Star

I feel like I'm supposed to care about the Petraeus thing. I tried, too. Nothing's clicking for me on this one.

As far as I can tell, there's no deep national security significance, at least not given that Petraeus has resigned and the biography's been written (unethical, maybe, but that's more on Broadwell than Petraeus) and that he's still available for any questions we might have. Sure, it could mean the guy's ego was so huge that he thought no one could take him down. But it's just as likely that the guy was humble enough to know that he needed to step back. All character hypotheticals are moot now that he's gone, anyway. At worst, this thing makes him the last in a line of 2000s-era War on Terror guys to to have the bear eat them, rather than the other way 'round. Probably not great for national morale, but what from the Bush II years is? I say junk the whole lot of it. Forward, etc.

And this is the CIA, for Christ's sake. When did morality become a standard for judging anyone over there? You don't have to be an adultery apologist to see the disconnect of priorities here. Drone warfare? Shit, what's that? Powerful guy consensually boning two separate women who aren't his wife? Raging media hard-on. Sure, it's slimy, but come on.

It doesn't matter how long ago graduation was, we're all stuck in high school. And where do semi-powerful, emotionally-stunted-at-high-school, semi-powerful adults best fit in? That's right: reality TV. I've seen several people comment that the entire embarassment would make for some ripping good melodrama. That should be a sad observation, but I say let it be done. At least there, it'll be relegated to a realm I don't have to pay attention to. Put them out there and let them play in the sandbox of their making, wallowing in the precise amount of dignity they've earned for themselves. And we'll watch them, chortling and groaning in equal measure, because TV's bottomless chum bucket has claimed Vanessa Redgrave respected, high level government officials.

NaNoWriMo

A post about National Novel Writing Month would've been timelier a week or so ago. But this blog was focused on something else. 

I'm of two minds about NaNoWriMo. In the first corner is the sick, contrarian part of my brain, the part that balks at anything smacking of booster-ish trendiness. The cutesy portmanteau is enough to readjust the relative position of my eyebrows. And I'm not sure what writer needs Internet-based camaraderie to get them to write. Also, if you're going to pick one month in which to write a novel, wouldn't a thirty-one day month serve you that much better?

While finishing one book that no one wanted doesn't entitle to me to a lot of elitism on the subject, I can say that books are generally not written in a month. A person may be able to write 50K words in thirty days' time (and good on them for doing so), but then there's the editing. And the re-writing. And then the next few rounds of editing after that. It's neither pithy nor romantic to say so, but these are the forgotten elements of writing. The site says--apparently seriously--that the program values "enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft." I blacked out when I first read that one. Woke up a couple of days later, wearing blood stains on an otherwise clean, white smock that I had never seen before. Since I've lost so much time, I'll keep this short: enthusiasm is good, perseverance is great, but it's the painstaking craft that stitches them together.

On the other hand, I really do appreciate anything that encourages people to write more (or any). Writing has usually been a rewarding experience for me and it's something I recommend to anyone who thinks they have might have something to say. There's nothing better for organizing one's thoughts than writing them down. The subject of writing is the closest I've come to proselytizing for anything, if only because advocating for the healing powers of alcohol remains a touchy subject in many circles. And though I'm not sure if everyone has a book in them, as is often claimed, you never know who does until they try. Meeting NaNoWriMo's goal leaves a writer with 50K words at the end of the month, words she can expand upon, or perhaps cut down for a short story. Or even re-purpose altogether to something else that can begin anew in December. That's the test of a writer: knowing how and when to continue or start over and seeing it through regardless. If NaNoWriMo can give people the impetus to start exorcising a long simmering dream, letting my intrinsic distaste for pithy methodology stand in the way seems, well, douchey.

Don't write because this particular month happens to make for some neat alliteration with which to advertise the project. Don't do it because other people are doing it. And don't stop on November 30th (likewise, come next year, if you think up a great idea for a book on October 26th, start then). Write because you have a story you want to tell. If you start with the hope of writing a novel and find that you have a much better short story in the works, run with that: the quality of your output means a hell of a lot more than the quantity. And if your project isn't working out and it's November 25th and you don't have time to start over, start over anyway; nothing is more arbitrary when it comes to writing than start and end times.

Essentially, if you're going to write, write.

Skyfall

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Apprehension sets in when we arrive at the Bond family manor in rural Scotland, the name of which lends Skyfall its title. The Bond films of the last fifty years seem to have made a pointed effort to not delve too much into James Bond as a coherent person--all the easier to replace aging actors, a cynic may say--and all we've gotten is "007." This works fine, assuming the films are good, but they're not always (I will never fully understand anyone who claims that Roger Moore achieved better than one or two decent Bond films). If Casino Royale truly was a reboot, then maybe we now deserve to see everything that made Bond who he is. We previously knew that he was an orphan, but little more. Skyfall introduces the blood and flesh, brick and mortar of his youth, revealing there is a person inside the agent, rather than an agent inside a person. And though these revelations all but kill the intriguing theory of James Bond being more of a code name than a person, the film series will prove the better for it. 

Outside of the character and the mythology, Daniel Craig is the greatest beneficiary of this development. What was once (on his good days) a two-dimensional hired killer is now a fully fleshed character, who happens to be a hired killer. There is a psychology and a reasoning behind the action hero. And this, by the way, is what the best so-called "gritty reboots" have always done: pare down the gimmicky action and give us a reason for the stunts. Craig is in the driver's seat of one of the most interesting heroes in cinematic history, one who changes and grows, if usually for the more grim and haunted. The brash, sharp-edged rookie from CR has evolved into a hard, field-ravaged machine. This owes as much to Craig's vulnerable, not-so-clean-cut performance as it does to the careful writing. There's always a lot of hyperbole surrounding this discussion, but I find it fair to say that Craig is quickly approaching the top of the Bond heap, with Connery still in the lead only because he was first. 

Judi Dench--even during the earlier Brosnan films--has always been an inspired choice for M, finally bringing a few measures of depth to Bond's boss. Where once MI6's boss could sometimes seem little more than a careless, bemused old man, enjoying Bond's antics, Dench brought a severe professionalism to the character, and a patience for Bond that could occasionally run out. But it's perhaps not until Skyfall that Dench is used for all her acting talents, delivering an M that is defiant but faltering. She is old, outmoded and, her slow understanding of that fact is sad because we realize how attached we've become to her, how attached Bond has become to her. Her death is sudden--a minor quibble, as that might've been handled better--but it could not have ended at any other time; she was never going to retire. Dench's M gets shuffled out not because we need her to move on, but because Bond needs her to and because MI6 needs her to. And that the story has more to do with her than any world-in-peril super-plot is a welcome development in a series that has too often felt the need to top itself over and over, in an increasingly impersonal fashion. 

Perhaps the bigger news--even bigger than M's fate--is the return of the eccentric, theatrical Bond villain. Javier Bardem (once again proving that if you give him a funny haircut, he will make it terrifying) brings an ebullient energy to Raoul Silva's quest for vengeance. When Silva arrives at Skyfall for the climax on a helicopter blaring The Animals' "Boom Boom" over a megaphone--one of several scenes in which Bardem simultaneously inspires both terror and glee--we see the flip side of the gritty reboot's gift for grounded transcendence (yes, I'm sticking with that description): the song is an organic pairing for his mission, a spurned madman's way of announcing himself and his plan. There is reason and history to Silva's mad methods and even his home base gets a back-story. When you make the villain interesting on his own terms--more than just someone for the hero to fight--you elevate both. 

I don't have as much to say about Naomi Harris' Moneypenny, other than that I like her. A lot. That this Moneypenny has been in the field--and can hold her own there--gives her much more interesting possibilities than someone who just has an easy and fun rapport with Bond (which, yes, this Moneypenny also has). 

Same with the new Q: a high-tech whiz kid with both feet planted firmly in the 21st Century. Portions of MI6 might prefer someone with an equal grounding in the old ways, but that's what Bond is for, right? 

The Bond series has flirted with irrelevance more than once. Skyfall boldly makes that theme central to its story and comes out the better for it, injecting desperately needed humanity into a series that can still be about escalating action, exotic locales, dangerous women, and insane villains, as long as there's a beating heart at the center. 

Grade: A-

And He Didn't Even Need Ohio.

A bunch of barely related, late night thoughts

Mitt Romney ran for president for seven years and still lost to the black guy in the sluggish economy.

Barack Obama is a two-term president. Savor that one. Say it aloud a few times. Taste it... know it... love it. We are pregnant with a second Obama term and, yes Republicans, it is a gift from God.

Mitch McConnell needs to Go. The Fuck. Away.

Nate Silver needs no defending. Not from me, anyway (especially when others have done it so well already). But, next time you want to slander a decent, hard-working nerd for saying something you don't like: remember this night. Hard numbers, boring though they may be, are nothing to fear. The end of your relevancy as lazy media dinosaurs, okay, that'll be kinda scary. We still don't care.

Next time Andrew Sullivan feels like hyperventilating, he needs to toke up. And then blog at us.

However, in fairness to Sullivan, Obama now needs to explain that first debate performance. We gave you another term, dude, you're golden. Just tell us what the hell happened. A real answer--not the campaign-caliber answer you gave Jon Stewart. Was it an Ambien kick? Malaria? Just trying to make things interesting?

Karl Rove sure is funny, ain't he? And looks like "a really sad Benjamin Franklin impersonator," as my wife said. My question: has Fox always been this entertaining? Why have I been missing this? Is this where their ratings come from? Whatever it is, they can look forward to four more years of those.

Good night, everybody. I'll see you in the morning, when a bitter, entitled Mittens is still refusing to concede.

America Flips a Coin

It's. Almost. Over.

Two years and a couple of billion dollars later, here we are.

Remember to keep a drink on hand for the vote-counting tonight. The traditional method, as I'm sure you know, is to take a shot for each state your candidate of choice wins (legend has it that the brain and liver damaged incurred during Ronald Reagan's overwhelming 1984 victory led directly to the conservative talk radio boom). But if, like me, you have work tomorrow, that's probably not a wise choice. So, for a long, cold night such as this one, I recommend curling up with a somewhat darker, heavier beer. Suggestions: Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale, or possibly the Anchor Brewery's Brekle's Brown. But, then, I'm partial to brown ales.

Lastly, for those who haven't seen it, here's my endorsement of Barack Obama that no one was waiting for.

So, I've done my part. And while I'm probably going to Early Vote next time around, it was still worth doing. Now: get out there and make sure your voice is drowned out by millions of others. And then drink some beer. For America.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland

"If the victories we create in our heads were let loose on reality, the world we know would drown in blazing happiness."
--Patton Oswalt, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland

Having never written stand-up before, I'm not sure what the difference is in writing for that versus writing for something that's meant to be read. I assume that each--done well--will have differences, as evidenced by some of the literary output of even the best comedians. George Carlin's books did little more than make me want to listen to Carlin; Napalm & Silly Putty, for example, is funny and easily heard in Carlin's voice, but seriously wants for his skill with poetic meanderings. This track record is the reason I put off reading Patton Oswalt's Zombie Spaceship Wasteland for so long. But I was wrong to do that. Ass-wrong.

In ZSW, Oswalt wisely combines biographical elements (laced with his gift for obscure pop cultural references) with one-off concepts, such as an academic examination of old hobo songs ("Hobos were, for some reason, insistent that 'oatmeal' rhymed with 'blue.'"). Doing this, no single aspect weighs down the book too much. Like the best stand-up routine, every worthwhile topic gets its own space to breath.

Among the more insightful one-offs is an examination of the personality types of teenage outcasts that gives the book its title. I won't try to lazily lay out the differences between zombies, spaceships, and wastelands here, not when Oswalt does it so perfectly (and honestly, if you were a teenage outcast, playing board games in the library during lunch, you can probably figure out who was which already). At the end, I'm probably a Wasteland. But if I'm allowed to have crossover elements, there's probably some strands of Zombie in there, too.

The biographical chapters range from the heartbreaking (Uncle Peter), to the experimental (I shit on stream-of-consciousness, but it may be the only proper way to revisit childhood snow forts), to the transcendent (if the conclusion of "The Victory Tour" isn't enough to make you pump your fist on a crowded train, I don't want you reading my blog anymore).

The last couple of chapters see Oswalt delve into his archives of writings-in-character, a gambit that might've fallen flat if deployed by a lesser talent. In these, the pseudonymous Erik Blevins and Neill Cumpston battle for the title of Most Gifted Writer to Ever Set Pen to Paper in the English Language. I won't spoil you for any of Blevins' magical, criminally-ignored film treatments,* but Cumpston probably deserves a spot of attention here, in a space that features more than it's share of mindlessly effusive film reviews. Among Cumpston's finer observations (regarding The Passion Of The Christ):

"Everyone's pissed at Jesus. They all want him dead. But this is back in Bible times, when they didn't have shotguns and chainsaws, and back then when you want to kill a superhero you have to rain two hours of whomp-ass on him and then nail him to something, sort of like a message to other superheroes. And they must have gotten the message, because there weren't any more superheroes until Superman."

I've done some gushing about Oswalt before. And that praise is re-earned here, in an entirely new way. Given the weirdest gun-to-my-head proposition I'll ever encounter, I'd choose to listen to Finest Hour, but ZSW goes a long way toward being the next best dose of Patton you'll ever be able to shoot uncut.

Grade: B+

*Actually, both "Blevin's" and "Cumpston's" work can be found online. I'll trust you to work the Google machine.

Obama, Head Bee Guy

Let's get this out of the way up front: no, he's not the golden god too many of us expected he would be. He was never going to be. But whose fault was that? Remember: we endowed him with the "I Got This" aura and then didn't show up to vote in the 2010 midterms. Sure, he kind of embraced the idea in 2008. But what functioning politician wouldn't in the heat of a campaign?

"We have a substantial check here for a Mr. Abraham Simpson."

"That's right, I did the Iggy."

The whole Hope and Change thing--as much opportunistically taken on as it was naively thrust upon--was the Obama Administration's original sin. And like the theological concept, it's outdated and unfair because nothing can be done about it now. But let's check the ledger:

Barack Obama achieved the single most important domestic legislation in a generation, rescued the U.S. Auto Industry, signed fair pair legislation (which had somehow not come to pass until 2009), backed gay rights as thoroughly as any president could, got us out of Iraq, laid the ground-work for the Afghanistan exit, didn't get bogged down anywhere else, and all but dismantled al-Qaeda. You're welcome, right? It's frustrating to me, too, that he's either incapable of or unwilling to tout his credentials well, but that's also part of the reason I like him: his hesitancy to play the game so publicly. You can chalk that up to arrogance (a stupid word to use, anyway, since presidents need to be arrogant), however it's a much more attractive kind of arrogance than that of his predecessor.

There's a thing about the modern American left that nothing ever seems good enough. You've heard it before: we could've had real universal healthcare, etc. First, no we couldn't have. See above about the Lilly Ledbetter Act: it took us long enough to get us something that should've been common sense decades ago--so how much can we reasonably expect? Second, Obama's not a liberal. At least, he doesn't govern as one. He has enough working against him when he doesn't (did you know that he's foreign-born and that he lied about his college grades, or some stupid thing?). See, Obama--like Obamacare--is a bridge to a less insane America, not the new America incarnate. The fact that some don't like these gradual, evolutionary adjustments is part of the reason the left has lost its foothold in the political discourse over the last generation. Yes, this quickly becomes a lesser-of-two-evils argument. It's always a lesser-of-two-evils argument. Nut up and dance with who brung you. Or vote third party.

And the NDAA and the ongoing drone wars? Yeah, okay, those bother me, too. Obama's given himself and future presidents far-reaching tools that should chill every American to the bone. And if he's lost any supporters over these matters, well, I can't fault that too much. However, this is the long-fermenting result of a power-amassing executive branch predicated upon the idea that the American people truck for "strong leadership," an idea that Americans have not generally disputed. But it helps to understand that the bloated security state and foreign policy apparatus exist almost independent of the whims of ideology these days: self-reinforcing structures that no president seems interested in tackling anymore (the last president, to my mind, who came into office with a greater interest in foreign affairs than domestic ones was Nixon). Romney, suffice to say, does not seem inclined to reverse that trend.

So, no. Obama ain't perfect. But we were never going to get perfect. Not in this economic and political climate. On the economy, he inherited an historic financial meltdown that he's mostly steered back to normalcy. It's amazing how easily that's been forgotten: how much can we fairly expect of a president in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 30's? And, however badly we might be hurting, notice none of us are living in Bushvilles.

Then there's the political climate. Or don't you remember the right-wing opposition that has snarled and gnashed their teeth for four years straight, doing everything they can to halt whatever they think Obama might be up to? An unconscionable congressional opposition that has explicitly made it their mission to destroy him. This is also the first president to have a 24-hour news network dedicated to slandering him. Fox News has raised a yammering army of Obama-deranged personalities for their cause; that a talking cat anus like Donald Trump has been allowed to make himself into a regarded commentator speaks volumes about the dearth of substance in our media. Think about what Obama could've accomplished with the kind of mindless obeisance that Bush II enjoyed at one time. In a robust polity, we would call out the hateful, childish tactics for what they are (political and economic terrorism) rather than rewarding them.

Of course, it could be argued that no man has the answer to being president in the Internet Age, where facts are fuzzy at best and all discourse is subject to the most primal instincts of an angry and imperfectly-evolved species. So on that front, I'm not sure Mr. Romney can hope to fair any better. After all, if the politics of obstruction prove feasible, what's to stop the left from making likewise?

And what of the president's opponent: that grinning parody of every shifting, shameless politician you've ever seen in TV or film. I once called John McCain one of the most cynical men ever to vie for the White House. And, with luck, the Sarah Palin pick will long stand as a high-water mark for miscalculated pandering. But Mitt Romney has found ground even McCain never dreamed of. What we have in Mittens is not an empty vessel of the Palin variety, but of its own, more terrifying kind: one that can be emptied and refilled again and again (sometimes stunningly quickly), never minding the slow erosion of its own self.

Romney, in his businessman-type way, believes that he is a product to be marketed, rather than structurally improved. It's easy to laugh at his tragicomic attempts at humanity, but it's in these moments that we see the truth: there is no there there. He is whatever he thinks will get him the prize. Not the stoic ship captain Obama has been (a trait even Gov. Christie now seems to appreciate), but the hapless, quick to ill-planned action sitcom dad.

And remember that thing I said about dancing with who brung you? President Romney will know that well. He'll have to work with a House and potentially a Senate comprised of the Limbaugh wing of his party. This is the social party of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. The fiscal party of Grover Norquist and Paul Ryan, Romney's VP and a signer to Norquist's juvenile no-tax pledge (and who publicly admits that he thinks Ayn Rand is a good writer). And then there are the Court appointments, several of which have been dangling for a decade or so as the justices get older.

He'll wear the Moderate Mitt Mask for now--it plays well with the marks in the 'burbs--but at some point he's gotta make good on that selling point about working with legislatures (balancing a state's budget is a lot easier when it's mandated by state law; and while we're here, I seem to recall Bush II touting similar credentials in reaching across the aisle--what is it about Republican governors that makes them think party dynamics work the same in state capitals as they do in Washington?). And the unmoored GOP that shrugged and said "okay, him," will want to cash in their chips for allowing Romney to go up against a president that they themselves had so handicapped. So guess who'll get to pick Mitt's next mask?

Now think on what kind of leverage Obama gets when he returns from re-election, able to look John Boehner square in his orange face and say, "I ain't dead yet, Oompa-Loompa."

Take this as you will. The lesser-of-two-evils. The devil you know. Not the president we deserve but the president we need. It's several parts of each. But in this week when the nation's two major news media centers have been hammered by much larger events (actually, DC got off relatively easy), we're in a place to put this campaign into perspective and think about the role of government as more than a philosophical debate. And, hopefully, with a better understanding of what the choices are.