Surviving Bad Choices

Time to take a deep breath, hold it, and let it slowly out. This country has great reserves of common sense. We are, I firmly believe, basically a good and decent people. We have survived bad government, bad business practices, bad luck, bad money and a long list of other evils.

We have, within my memory, survived an evil war and the extremes of opinion it fomented. We have survived vindictive, unprincipled presidents, and we came out of all those trials stronger.

Tuesday's election was won both in the popular and the electoral vote by a man I believe is deeply unworthy of the office held by men such as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, who refuses to learn from his mistakes or even acknowledge that he has erred. Faced with a choice between the unwarranted swagger and obdurate self-satisfaction of Bush, and the dull, uncomfortable candidate that the Democrats chose to run, the voters by a margin of two per cent. opted for swagger over dull deliberative argument.

Four more years and several nominations for Supreme Court positions give George W. Bush more power than he can ever appreciate in a deep and responsible way. For him, these powers are the perquisites of what he called "collateral." His "mandate."

The job I have, that all reasoning Americans have, is to make the best of what we have, to be a loyal but unflagging opposition to each and every bad decision this flawed and limited man is bound to make over the next four years.

Stay the course and pray for grace, those are my watchwords.