Death of the D.C. Sniper

It was a matter of minutes ago that it was announced that John Muhammad, the adult half of the D.C. sniper team, has been executed.

Like most people, I remember where I was and what I was doing on September 11. But, unlike most people, I didn't see it as it was happening. I was working in an office, and there was no TV in that office so everyone sat riveted to their radios. I didn't actually see footage of the attacks until the middle of the afternoon. The manager decided to close the office early so I went home and then, about seven hours after the second plane hit the World Trade Center, I first saw footage of that event. And then I saw footage of the WTC collapsing.

That's been the source of a strange dichotomy for me. I feel as if I shared the experience I had on September 11 with the people in that office. But I didn't share the experience of people who saw it all unfold.

Anyway, I feel differently about my experience with the D.C. sniper case. It wasn't a one–day event. Instead it was spread out over several weeks. But I felt more personally involved with it. I saw the reports of the latest shootings. Even though it was all happening in another part of the country, I couldn't help feeling that I could be next. The attacks seemed to be so random, people getting shot while doing ordinary, everyday things like buying gas or mowing the lawn or sitting at a bus stop reading a book.

When I was younger, I was against the death penalty because I felt there was always a possibility that the wrong person could have been convicted. But in the last 15 years or so, DNA evidence has emerged as a convincing element of most death penalty cases, which has eased my concerns.

But, whether you have DNA evidence or not, I've learned something else in my life.

Some people are evil, plain and simple.

John Muhammad was one of those people. And the world is a better place without him.

Good Advice

Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times has some good advice for Barack Obama.

"If I were a close adviser of President Obama's," Herbert writes, "I would say to him, 'Mr. President, you have two urgent and overwhelming tasks in front of you: to put Americans trapped in this terrible employment crisis back to work and to put the brakes on your potentially disastrous plan to escalate the war in Afghanistan.' "

I can only hope he reads it — either on his own or upon the recommendation from one of his actual advisers.

"I would tell the president that the feeling is widespread that his administration went too far with its bailouts of the financial industry, sending not just a badly needed lifeline but also unwarranted windfalls to the miscreants who nearly wrecked the entire economy," Herbert writes. "The government got very little in return. The perception now is that Wall Street is doing just fine while working people, whose taxes financed the bailouts, are walking the plank to economic oblivion."

Herbert touches on the administration's insistence on emphasizing health care reform while unemployment has been virtually ignored. "We have spent the better part of a year locked in a tedious and unenlightening debate over health care while the jobless rate has steadily surged," he writes. "It's now at 10.2 percent. Families struggling with job losses, home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies are falling out of the middle class like fruit through the bottom of a rotten basket."

I do not recall health care reform being a part of the general election debate last year, but you couldn't prove it by the way it has been pushed to the top of the administration's first–year agenda.

The president's priorities are misplaced. That is Herbert's message. It has been mine, too.

I can only hope he gets it. Before it's too late.

The Definition of Insanity

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"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Albert Einstein

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Professor Einstein never worked for a newspaper. At least, I don't think he did.

But, even if he didn't, I have little doubt that he would have seen the newspaper industry as the embodiment of his observation.

I offer, as Exhibit A, a memo (complete with copy editor's marks and comments) that has been making the rounds at the Toronto Star.

On one hand, I find it amusing because this memo is one long example of just about everything they warned us against when I was studying journalism in school — starting with a bloated, neutral language that snakes its way around the facts without ever really acknowledging them. The publisher is basically saying that the newspaper is losing money so the paper is going to slash its staff and cut back on what it produces (in more ways than one). The newspaper is going to eliminate those on the payroll who are trained and experienced in order to replace them with untrained and inexperienced people who will work for less.

It's a decision that is made by bean counters when it should be made by wordsmiths.

On the other hand, I find this depressing because it is symptomatic of the kinds of self–defeating decisions that newspaper publishers have had to make in recent years. Just about anywhere you go in America today, the local newspaper (if there is one) is considerably smaller than it was a few years ago. There are fewer people in the newsroom with the training and the experience that the work requires.

Today's newspapers are streamlined operations. On the surface, it would appear that the publishers have made the tough but sound business decisions they had to make to survive. But the newspaper business is not like other businesses. You can't cut corners like that with a product like a newspaper and reasonably expect most people to pay the same price for less.

But publishers can't understand why they're losing readers.

The original mistake that newspapers made was failing to recognize the potential of the internet and construct a business model that would succeed in a digital age. Newspapers had to act quickly, though, to take advantage of the initial opportunity, and few had business managers who were that nimble on their feet.

Anyway, that window of opportunity slammed shut fairly quickly. And now that the internet is clearly here to stay, some newspapers are repeating what has been shown to be an unsuccessful strategy for newspapers — charging people for access to their content.

At some point, newspaper management will realize that internet consumers have many sources for news and information that are available to them for no additional cost. Unless a newspaper has this generation's H.L. Mencken or Red Smith on staff, there will be no compelling reason for most readers to fork over whatever is being charged. Most internet subscribers will gravitate to the free sources for news and sports scores.

Actually, small–town newspapers may be in a better position to profit online. A small–town newspaper is more likely to be the only source for articles on the latest local school board or city council meeting. With more local radio stations establishing an online presence, that may change in many small towns.

But many of the radio stations in metropolitan areas are online now, and they already are competing with the metro newspapers for local news. Consequently, there isn't much unique content that big–city newspapers can offer.

But reducing the quality of the product just makes it easier for many subscribers to conclude that it is a product they can live without.

I firmly believe that newspapers must offer a product that readers are convinced they must have if they are to survive. That won't be accomplished through slick advertising campaigns or offering less for the same price.

But no one has devised a business model for newspapers that will succeed in the digital world — so most newspapers insist on duplicating the mistakes others made before them.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The definition of insanity.

Courtesy of the newspaper business.

Absence of Empathy

The day after last week's shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, the Boston Globe pondered, in an editorial, Americans' expectation that their president "capture the mood and moment" of tragic events "with the right blend of emotion, empathy and urgency."

The Globe conceded that this is a "delicate act of timing and tone." Not every president has been able to manage it. In fact, George W. Bush was criticized by many for his somewhat flat speech to the nation on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, although he made up for it with a stronger effort in his speech to Congress a week later.

But the presidents who have succeeded — in recent times, one thinks of Ronald Reagan and the attack on the Marines' barracks in Beirut (and, later, the Challenger disaster) and Bill Clinton and the Oklahoma City bombing — have been rewarded for, to borrow Clinton's phrase, feeling Americans' shared pain.

Barack Obama, the Globe wrote, "despite his eloquence and dignity, has yet to master" this role. The newspaper admitted that, in his initial remarks following the shootings, Obama eventually made statements that were "respectful and appropriate.

"But it took him too long to get to the point of delivering them," the editorial complained.

Bloggers on different points of the political spectrum have been quick to take the baton from the Globe and run with it.

Here is a sample.

"The tragedy at Ft. Hood was a moment and a chance for a president, about whom the armed forces aren't yet sure, to step up and assume one of the most important roles he has — that of commander in chief," wrote Bruce McQuain for the QandO blog. "And, frankly, he blew it. Even the liberal Boston Globe understood he'd blown it."

The complaints remind me of how I felt back on Labor Day.

I felt certain that Obama would use the occasion of Labor Day to speak to the nation about the unemployment situation. Remember Labor Day? It was just a couple of months ago, but, in many ways, it seems so much longer.

The Labor Department had just announced a few days earlier that unemployment had risen to 9.7%, its highest level in 26 years. It was the ideal time, I thought, for him to reassure the unemployed that he felt their pain and that he was focusing like a laser on finding an answer.

But, instead, he embarked on a campaign trip to drum up support for health care reform. And his lieutenants were busy putting out fires that had been started by his announced intention to speak to the schoolchildren of America the next day. If he said anything about unemployment that day, I never heard about it.

"What happened?" an unemployed friend of mine asked me in an e–mail that evening. "Why didn't he talk about unemployment?"

My friend didn't have to say who "he" was. We both knew because we had discussed this very subject by e–mail earlier in the day. I had to admit that I didn't know why he didn't speak about unemployment on what was the most appropriate day to do so.

Things have gotten worse since then. Last week, the Labor Department reported that unemployment was over 10% for the first time since April 1983. And today I read that an unemployed fellow blogger whose marriage is breaking up is leaving his soon–to–be ex–wife and their daughters in Massachusetts to live with family members in Florida or Missouri.

He has written about his struggles before, and his friends in the blogosphere have been hoping things would turn around for him.

"When a gunman fired those shots at Fort Hood, the country immediately felt the pain," the Globe wrote last week. "Obama missed the first moment to show he understood just how much it hurt."

The unemployed have been in pain for a long time, and most, if not all, would like some reassurance from their president.

My guess is most could have told the soldiers in Fort Hood not to expect much empathy from this White House.

The Butterfly Revolution

The pastor of my church spoke in his sermon today about the "butterfly effect."

You can get into all sorts of complicated and technical discussions in a conversation on this subject. It has to do with the chaos theory, which is not something with which everyone agrees.

But those who subscribe to the theory seem to like it because it appears to be deceptively simple.

In a nutshell, the theory holds that a tiny butterfly, flapping its wings, could have a ripple effect that contributes to a tornado or something that alters the course of events somewhere in the world. The act of flapping the butterfly's wings changes the initial condition and that, in turn, affects everything else.

Sort of a domino effect.

It's no surprise to me, really, that the pastor of my church is drawn to this theory. He does seem to have an affinity for butterflies. In fact, he spoke about them in his sermon last Sunday, then he and the congregation went outside to consecrate the "Celebration Garden," an elaborate columbarium that is being constructed on the church property.

A single butterfly perched on the lectern during the consecration ceremony, then, as the pastor was concluding his remarks, a flock of butterflies seemed to appear out of nowhere and flew through the assembled members. I don't know if he saw them or not, but I have a hunch he wouldn't have been surprised.

After listening to his sermon, I've been wondering if this phenomenon really exists. And, if it does, I wonder, is it possible to catch a glimpse of it as it is happening? Or is it invisible to the naked eye?

For that matter, if this phenomenon exists, does it only apply when bad things happen, like earthquakes or tornadoes? Or does it apply to good things as well?

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the butterfly effect is part of the chaos theory. "Chaos" has a negative reputation so perhaps it can only apply when something bad is the outcome.

Then maybe the "butterfly effect" should be renamed "The Butterfly Revolution."

That's the name of a "Lord of the Flies"–esque novel that I read when I was a teenager. And it might be a more appropriate name for a culture that is going through some growing pains on several levels in this era.

Butterflies can form the basis of analogies and parables that are great for pastors.

But when they're applied to the modern world, their chaotic sides may be more appropriate for bats.

So maybe butterflies don't have that much bearing on human events after all.

Or is it possible that maybe things really are that random?

Boycott

I had hoped that it wouldn't come to this, but it has.

Regular readers of my blog may recall that about five weeks ago, I reported that I had been blocked from a blog. I inquired about the reason for this and was never given an answer, but the author of the blog relented a few hours later and informed me that the block had been lifted. I could only assume that I was the victim of mistaken identity. I figured it was the kind of thing that could happen to anyone and I gave it no more thought.

Until Friday.

On Friday, I left a comment on one of the items on the blog. I came back to the blog about an hour later and attempted to leave another comment, but a message popped up informing me that I was blocked.

Once again, I have no idea why I am being blocked. I sent an e–mail to the author asking for clarification, but I received no reply. That is twice now that I have been blocked from commenting and have not been granted the courtesy of an explanation either time.

Did I say something offensive? I didn't think so. If I did, I would like to be able to apologize for it and, perhaps, explain things better than I may have originally. I know that, when I was young, I had a tendency to shoot from the hip, as many people do. I like to think I have matured some since those days, but if I lapsed in my comments on that blog, I'd like to think it could be one of those "teachable moments" of which the president speaks. Guess not.

The topic of the blog item was a murder–suicide. I won't go into detail about what was written in the original blog post, but I commented that it was premature to speculate about an investigation that is still ongoing.

I also made a comment about something the blog author said in a reply to a reader's comment — there had already been about four dozen comments made on that article, many of which challenged what the author had written. The author basically said that freedom of speech gave her the right to say anything she wants.

I observed that freedom of speech does have limits.

And I think it is worthwhile to remind my readers of those limits. We do enjoy considerable freedom of speech in this country, but it is not absolute. It is usually the context that decides whether it should be restricted.

For example, restricting freedom of speech is not a good thing if one is being censored.

But it is a good thing if it prevents someone from standing up in a crowded theater and yelling "Fire!" just to see all the chaos and commotion that ensues.

And it's a good thing if it prevents people from making unsubstantiated accusations. I know there are people who don't like what they read in my blog, and they are entitled to that. And they are entitled to express their disagreement. But they are not entitled to call me a murderer or a thief or a child molester unless they have evidence supporting those charges.

When I received no reply to Friday's inquiry about the reason why I was being blocked, I sent a second e–mail to the author of the blog advising her that she has lost a reader. Even if she e–mails me at some time in the future telling me that the block has been lifted, I have no intention of reading anything on her blog again. I will forgive, as I was taught to do when I was growing up, but I will not forget.

Yesterday, I was reminded of my earlier experience and the fact that I wrote that I would encourage my readers to boycott the blog if it physically blocked me from looking at its content. Well, as far as I know, it has not done that, but I feel I have been insulted. In the past, I have seen others who made comments that, rightly or wrongly, were regarded as objectionable. They were given warnings. I have not been granted that courtesy.

So I am going to ask my readers to boycott the blog. If you prefer to send an e–mail, here is the link: E–mail.

Here is the link to the site.

If you wish to do neither, that's OK. It helps a little just to let off some steam.

(By the way, if you decide to send an e–mail, you might mention to the author that she is still one of the followers of my blog. Since she is blocking me from commenting on her blog, she might want to remove herself as a follower of mine.)

Thanks for your support.

Playin' Those Word Games

Last night, the House of Representatives approved a version of the health care reform plan by the narrow vote of 220–215. If the vote supporting the measure had been strictly along party lines, that would have meant that there were 38 Democratic defectors.

But, in reality, there were 39 Democrats who opposed the bill. That left 219 Democrats. In order to reach 220, they picked up the vote of one Republican. You may remember his name. He is Anh Cao, a Vietnamese–American who was elected last year to replace William Jefferson as the representative of a heavily Democratic district in New Orleans.

"Bipartisanship" has been a key word for Democrats this year, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasted little time bragging that the health care reform bill had been passed with a bipartisan vote.

Let's see. If one Republican votes for a Democratic measure and 39 Democrats vote against it, doesn't it stand to reason it is actually the Republicans who achieved bipartisanship?

I guess that depends on how something is being spun — and who's doing the spinning.

Well, at the very least, it's another example of how politicians induce a verbal fog by deliberately saying as little as possible for as long as possible. In this case, the Democrats in Washington, including the president, have spent a year trying to appease their Republican colleagues in the name of bipartisanship — with extremely limited results.

Before the Democrats in Congress and "the One" in the White House get carried away with their bipartisan achievement, I'd like to remind them that the Senate still has to approve precisely the same legislation that is approved by the House. If the Senate approves a health care reform bill that differs in any way from the version that was approved by the House, it comes back for another vote. And this can go on indefinitely.

Next time, Rep. Cao may be persuaded to vote with the rest of the Republican membership (which may, at this very minute, be trying to lure him back to their side with pledges of personal and financial support in next year's election). And some Democrats who straddled the fence before choosing to support their party may be nudged to join the three dozen defectors thanks to poll results from their districts.

For What It's Worth

This morning's thought is little more than a rumination, I suppose. As Scrooge told Marley's Ghost in "A Christmas Carol," it "may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato."

If that is so, perhaps I should be able to dismiss it as easily as Scrooge hoped to dispatch Marley's Ghost by saying, "There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

But, as Scrooge learned, that is not so easily done. It has become no easier in the 165 years since Dickens' holiday tale was first published.

Whatever its source, this thought has been on my mind today. And it will not rest until I address it.

When it was announced yesterday that unemployment had gone over 10% for the first time in more than 26½ years, it re–ignited the now familiar finger pointing from both sides. The Democrats continued their descent into denial, chanting the litany, "It was Bush's fault!" Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, the Republicans burst into a spirited rendition of their patented lockstep dance, the "The GOP One–Step." Sort of a circular firing squad.

Well, as long as we're assigning blame — and there is plenty to go around — it's a good idea to heed the musical advice of the late Michael Jackson and look at the man in the mirror. I know an individual doesn't have any clout, but this is a nation of more than 300 million individuals. How many of those are adults?

It is true that corporate greed and bankers' excesses played large roles in the economic implosion, and it is true that politicians of both stripes enabled them through legislation (or the absence of it), but many individuals were willing participants as well. They heard the admittedly self–serving sales pitch from politicians encouraging them to spend their money and juice up the economy long before September 11 (after which, urging people to travel and buy expensive luxury items was packaged as a patriotic act), and they lived beyond their means.

At first, with all that fuel being poured into it, the economic engine hummed merrily along. But the engine grew dependent on that constantly increasing fuel source, and it began to sputter when some people reached the limit of their spending potential. It had to make a downward adjustment to compensate. If you have ever gone on a diet, you know how painful that kind of adjustment can be.

Have you ever known someone who achieved an astonishing weight loss — only to gain it all back and 30 additional pounds as well? That seems to have been the case with the American economy in the last 30 or 40 years.

Take, for example, the subject of automobile fuel efficiency. As long as I can remember, there have been heated discussions about making all vehicles more efficient whenever something has caused a sharp spike in gas prices, and sales of small cars have surged. But, when those gas prices have gone back down, as they always have (although seldom, if ever, to the level that existed before the spike), those concerns have gone away, too, as have many of the small, fuel–efficient vehicles that were briefly popular. Taking their places were cars and trucks (and, in recent years, SUVs) that were bigger and gaudier and more wasteful than those vehicles that preceded them.

Ultimately, the economic engine could not be sustained. And now, as everyone tries to dig out from under this pile of rubble, there are TV commercials extolling the virtues of "getting back to basics." They're still telling you to spend your money — this time on things that are important but not always necessary.

Well, I suppose that's an improvement from hawking things which were neither important nor necessary.

It now appears that this will not be, as many had feared, a second Great Depression. Perhaps a Great Recession. Barack Obama and the Democrats are eager to take credit for avoiding a catastrophe, but educated economists never seem to agree on anything and, since their opinions are the ones that matter on economic issues, the jury is still out on whether the Democrats' actions accelerated or impeded a recovery.

For that matter, there is still plenty of debate over whether we actually are in recovery mode. It can't be a true recovery, some argue convincingly, until the economy stops losing jobs.

But, if things ever get back to "normal" — whatever that may mean — the adults of today need to take from this experience (and they need to instill in the next generation) a commitment to thrift.

Yes, the economy needs people to spend. That's the juice that keeps it going. But our parents and grandparents learned some important survival lessons during the Depression that weren't handed down to most of today's adults.

And one of the most important was saving for that rainy day.

In recent decades, personal savings declined rapidly. That needs to change. Recovering from a recession does not have to mean snapping up the first shiny bauble one sees.

There have been many technological advances in my lifetime, and each one seems designed to prove that no one can predict the future.

But you can prepare for it.

The Dead and the Dying

The last couple of days have presented us with ample reminders that those who are not already dead are busy dying.

The most obvious example of the former comes to us from my neck of the woods — yesterday's mass shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. The Killeen Daily Herald today provides eyewitness accounts of the carnage that claimed — by current counts — 13 lives.

Granted, Fort Hood is about a two–hour drive from Dallas, but that's like a stroll in the park, by Texas standards.

A resolution appears to be on the verge of passing the House that will honor those who were killed. Hopefully, the death toll will not rise, but 30 other people were injured and all but two had to be hospitalized. The victims who remain hospitalized today are listed in stable condition so there is reason to believe no one else will die, but complications have been known to occur.

Well, if anything good can be said about those 13 deaths, it would be that they were quick. For the long–term jobless in America, a quick demise would be preferable to the slow agony they are experiencing.

And the agony continues. The Labor Department reported today that unemployment has exceeded 10% in America.

Perhaps in anticipation of that development, perhaps in reaction to Tuesday's elections, Congress approved an extension of unemployment benefits that Barack Obama was scheduled to sign into law today.

I have to admit that the timing seems suspect to me. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have been losing their benefits in the last several months, while the Democrats have been obsessing over health care reform. Then Democrats lose two governorships — and a couple of days later, the Democrats in Congress approve a benefits extension.

Paul Krugman writes, in the New York Times, that "economic policy is starting to look like [Obama's] Anzio" because he was too cautious in his approach.

This benefit extension may seem like a bold move to some. And, as one of the long–term unemployed, I appreciate these crumbs that Obama and the Democrats in Congress are tossing to us. But I feel that they are treating a symptom when it is a disease that is killing us.

What's the Meaning of it All?

Gail Collins has an amusing column in the New York Times that essentially rejects the claims one hears from both sides about what Tuesday's elections really mean or don't mean.

Collins, who, like many of her colleagues at the Times, is an unapologetic Barack Obama supporter, belittles the assessments that portend bad news for her president next year. Collins apparently doesn't think there is any lesson to be learned from the elections. That's true, of course.

Except that it isn't.

The point that Obama's supporters have been trying to make for months — that he is still personally popular — has been repeatedly shown to be correct in public opinion polls. But those supporters have been ignoring something else that the polls have been saying — that Obama's policies are not popular with voters.

When they go to the polls in 2010, voters will not find Obama on their ballots. But they will find senators and congressmen who voted on issues Obama has promoted. They won't be voting on Obama. They will be voting on his agenda. And, in the past, the American people have frequently shown that they have an intriguing relationship with presidents they like but whose agendas they do not like.

In part, that was a point the voters reminded us of Tuesday.

The voters said a lot of things on Tuesday. Some of it had to do with Obama. But there were other factors, too. In general, anyone who truly believes the election — which was as limited as an election held in an odd–numbered year can be — was a genuine referendum on the Obama administration either has no clue what he/she was talking about or was indulging in some wishful thinking.

But that doesn't mean there weren't some valuable lessons to be learned from the elections on Tuesday.

For that matter, in spite of her liberal leanings, Collins stumbled into truth when she remarked in her column: "The defeat of Gov. Jon Corzine made it clear that the young and minority voters who turned out for Obama will not necessarily show up at the polls in order to re–elect an uncharismatic former Wall Street big shot who failed to deliver on his most important campaign promises while serving as the public face of a state party that specializes in getting indicted. They would not rally around Corzine even when the president asked them!"

Yes, Corzine is all those things that Collins says — and less. Obama may have been snookered by polls showing that Corzine had a chance to be re–elected and, thus, unsuccessfully gambled with his political capital when he came to New Jersey to campaign for the governor.

But the election results show that those young and minority voters who helped Obama win last year were not enticed to return to the polls this year with the president's name absent from the ballot. That was a limited problem this year. It will be much more widespread next year.

Obama's victory in last year's presidential election clearly was historic. But history cannot be viewed in bits and pieces. It must be seen in total.

With that in mind, one of Collins' colleagues, Ruy Teixeira, has some worthwhile advice for folks in both parties — relax. It's not necessarily as bad for Democrats as Republicans would like to believe. And it's not as good for Democrats as they would like to believe.

"Far more consequential," Teixeira writes, "is the historical pattern that the new president's party tends to lose seats in the first midterm election."

And Teixeira is on to something with the suggestion that the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia "tell you nothing about who will gain seats in 2010 or how large that gain will be."

Very true. What happens in November of 2010 will be determined, to a great extent, by what happens between now and then. From that perspective, Tuesday was a warning for Obama and the Democrats. You can't continue to pass the buck on unemployment, the voters were saying. Millions are hurting, but little has been done to encourage job creation.

That perception can be reversed, at least in part, but Obama and the Democrats will have to be more proactive. The House and Senate took a good first step by extending unemployment benefits, but that is, at best, a short–term answer. The ongoing problem will be apparent for all to see tomorrow when the jobless report comes out at the same time Obama is signing that legislation extending benefits.

The economy, especially unemployment, will be a huge player in 2010, and other charismatic presidents — notably Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — learned the hard way that voters have short memories. Reagan found that blaming Jimmy Carter and Clinton learned that blaming George H.W. Bush had no real value with the voters in the midterms.

In the modern vernacular, Reagan and Clinton took ownership of the economy when they were elected and, therefore, had shouldered the responsibility for it for two years when the midterm elections rolled around. Many Obama voters may not think that is fair. Indeed, it may not be. But that's been the truth about American politics for a long time.

That is the historical lesson with which each president must come to terms. And, in Obama's case, it is compounded by the problem that is presented by the demographics that led to his election. Young and minority voters do not have histories of regular participation in elections, but they turned out in droves to help Obama win last year.

The challenge for Democrats is to get these voters back to the polls when Obama is not on the ballot. History says it can't be done.

That does not mean it's all good news for the Republicans. The GOP's gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia were more appealing than their Democratic counterparts, which made it easier for Republicans to draw their voters to the polls.

But if they are expecting to ride a wave of discontent to a 1994–like victory in next year's congressional elections, it's not going to be that simple.

Once again, Teixeira seems to be on to a truism. "If any repudiation is going on, perhaps it is of the conservative wing of the Republican Party," Teixeira writes, citing the special election in New York's 23rd congressional district.

New York is clearly — to use a popular phrase — a "blue state," but its individual districts have more distinct personalities, and the 23rd is a good example. For the first time in more than 100 years, a Democrat will represent that district. He defeated a conservative third–party foe when the Republican candidate, a moderate, withdrew and endorsed him.

Republicans have long spoken of being a "big tent," but the party appears to be little changed from the party that nominated Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and both Bushes. It still uses social wedge issues in a divide and conquer strategy that worked pretty well through most of the last four decades.

But in a place like America, where the electorate becomes more diverse with each passing day, it doesn't work as well as it did in 1968.

Again, what happens next November will be, to a great extent, the product of what happens between now and then, but common sense says the Republicans will need to nominate candidates who are more inclusive if they expect to make real headway. That means shifting more to the center and seeking candidates who are more representative of the Republican Party that existed when George Romney was mentioned as a potential president rather than the party that currently seems prepared to nominate his son in 2012.

If the GOP is successful in that endeavor, that will actually be good news. It will mean a reduced emphasis on wedge issues. That may necessitate giving up on active opposition to abortion rights or same–sex marriage or mindlessly supporting a wasteful, unwinnable war against marijuana. It should mean more of a debate on the role of government — and there could hardly be a better time to examine the role of government than a time of the greatest economic upheaval since the Depression — and sources of much–needed tax revenue.

That is the challenge for Republicans. Recent history says that cannot be done, either.

Well, one of those truisms most likely will fall next year. If neither does, there won't be much movement on either side.

And history says that won't happen, either.