Sinister

And now, with three or four hours of fitful sleep intervening between the collapse and a dispassionate survey of the ruins, what shall we say? That change will be purchased at the cost of hope? How dire. The Left did not conquer Congress, for all that it stormed the gates. We are Byzantium, then, besieged by the Youngish Turks, or Moors, or what have you. Alas, there is not even a Christian West remaining, to turn down our pleas for aid. America, alone, and turning its back on itself. How inverted.

But it's a new day, and we will find its sunlight. Bright spots may be found. Congress is not filibuster-proof. The idiot Republicans did not entirely sell their birthright. Gay marriage went down to the place where it belongs, although an appeal to the federal courts will of course be made, which will end up in Obama's Supreme Court. But that will take a few years, so the Decameron festivities are briefly separated from their concomitant plagues. What other good news? Obama himself is perhaps just a cynical pol, and not the actual gilded totem pole his worshipers contend.

Obama is an orphan. Abandoned on both sides. That will mark a man. He will strive for approval and acceptance. As a man of the left, he will be inclined to seek it from enemies rather than from those owed his actual loyalty, but perhaps his pragmatic nature, that guided him through the cesspool of Chicago politics, will provide some guidance that is coincidentally in line with patriotism. We shall see.

It the meantime, we console ourselves that something remains of the federal system, of separations of powers, of checks and balances. The American electorate has knelt in the forecourt of the Temple of Moloch, but not entered into its Holy of Holies. As for the rest of us, sometimes trials by fire are survived. Not every fiery furnace is fatal. That's good news, then -- it gives God another chance to demonstrate his grace and ability to work wonders.


J