Hypocrisy and the Damage Done

If anyone confuses me with a George W. Bush supporter, I can only conclude that person

• doesn't know me, or
• hasn't read much in this blog.

Perhaps (or maybe that should be probably) both.

After all, Bush was still president when I wrote that his actions in office needed to be investigated.

I still believe that to be true, but, after revisiting that particular post, I feel I need to amend what I said — if only to make what I feel are somewhat obvious points about hypocrisy.

I'm not saying that Barack Obama was dishonest about his intentions in Iraq — but he has been, at the very least, inconsistent in what he has said.

On the surface, Obama appeared to be gracious toward his predecessor when he said, in his speech informing the public that he had fulfilled his pledge to end all combat operations in Iraq, "[N]o one can doubt President Bush's support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security," and he went on to observe that "there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it."

But there has long been a rising chorus in America of people who believed that the Bush administration (the president and all the others whose names will be forever linked to this tragedy) lied to the people to further its own agenda. And one of those voices had been Obama's.

In the now–forgotten days before the economic implosion, Obama's opposition to the war in Iraq and his desire to end American military involvement there was one of the main things that drew voters to him, not unlike Gene McCarthy's insurgent candidacy against LBJ four decades before.

It may be hard to remember now, but the campaigns for both parties' presidential nominations were conducted with the unpopular Iraq war as the backdrop, not the economy.

"There was no such thing as Al Qaeda in Iraq," Obama told an audience in Ohio during the 2008 presidential campaign, "until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."

Hmmmm. Seems to me Obama was asserting on that occasion (and on others in the spring of 2008) that both Bush and McCain had been guilty of lying when they pressed Congress for the authority to invade Iraq.

After all, the primary reason for going to war (which has long been discredited) was the alleged existence of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, weapons that supposedly were aimed at America, ready to launch at a second's notice. And those allusions to mushroom clouds from folks like Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, et al., drove that message home.

And, because Al Qaeda was such an emotional subject for most Americans in the months immediately following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the proponents of a war with Iraq tossed around the suggestion that Al Qaeda had used Iraq as a base of operations. That, too, proved to be false.

But, without those two arrows in their quiver at that time, the so–called neocons never could have frightened the American public — or the American Congress — into going along with them.

Lying about the reasons for launching an invasion doesn't seem very patriotic to many Americans — especially Americans who were passionate about their opposition to the war (and believed their opposition was a valid expression of their own patriotism) and yet were slandered as unpatriotic by those who supported the war.

How do you suppose they feel when they hear Obama praise Bush's "love of country" in connection with the Iraqi operation?

Does it seem hypocritical to you?

Hypocrisy isn't an easy thing to confront, is it? Of course, no one is perfect, but Eugene Robinson, an Obama enabler from the Washington Post who complains that American voters are petulant "spoiled brats" who are ready to turn over the Congress to a party they loathe because Democrats haven't produced improvements fast enough to suit them, frets that what voters appear all but certain to do in November makes no sense.

Actually, in the context of the American experience, it does make sense. At the very least, it is consistent. In the midterm campaigns of 1982 and 1994, respectively, both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton repeatedly reminded the voters that they had inherited bad economies.

And surveys showed that the majority of respondents agreed with Reagan and Clinton — but the voters had moved on. They weren't thinking about who started the fire. They were thinking about who had been chosen to extinguish the fire. And, in both cases, that had not been done.

Robinson doesn't think it is fair, and maybe it isn't. But what does fair have to do with it? It's the way American voters have behaved as long as I can remember. It shouldn't surprise anyone.

I'm inclined to think Robinson makes a valuable point when he says Obama can "point to any number of occasions on which he has told Americans that getting our nation back on track is a long–range project." Yet, in the very same column, Robinson admits that, when he was running for president, Obama's "campaign stump speech ended with the exhortation, 'Let's go change the world' — not 'Let's go change the world slowly and incrementally, waiting years before we see the fruits of our labor.' "

And that's the point. Obama raised the bar for himself by making "change" the centerpiece of his campaign. And his words had an urgency, an almost revolutionary sound, to them.

Now, not only is change coming too slowly for some, most can't agree on what kind of change the campaign was really about (and, therefore, the Obama presidency should be about).

Nevertheless, the fact remains that Obama campaigned under the banner of change, and change is what the voters expected. If the voters can't see it, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. It might mean it isn't the kind of change they expected, or there hasn't been enough of it to make a difference in their lives.

It may well be true, as some have suggested, that some economic indicators are doing better and that this is a stubborn economy — and that, even though it will be years before most Americans see any change in their health care, it is a landmark achievement (that could well be repealed if the other party takes legislative power in a few months) — but real change, the kind that makes a positive difference in people's lives, is hard for many to see, especially when the latest report from the Labor Department showed unemployment moving back up in the direction of 10%.

Perhaps that explains why Gallup reports finding that less than 40% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing on the economy. And, while Obama may be proud of passing health care reform legislation, he would be wise not to bring it up too much if Gallup is right. His handling of that issue is only marginally more popular than his handling of the economy (Gallup's finding, by the way, is confirmed by CNN polling, which tends to be more pro–Democrat than the typically neutral Gallup).

Some voters continue to take it on faith that the economy is getting better and blame the previous administration for all their difficulties, and Obama eagerly embraces that approach, as other presidents have.

But it just seems hypocritical to me that the same man who, in the days before his inauguration, urged his countrymen to look to the future instead of the past by investigating his predecessor's actions in office — who launched his presidential campaign with an eloquent plea for taking responsibility ("We've been told that our crises are somebody else's fault. We are distracted from our real failures and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants, and as people have looked away in frustration and disillusionment, we know who has filled the void") — now excuses his own failings by reminding people, at every opportunity, who was in office when the recession began.

And then he praises his predecessor's patriotism as he concludes a war that predecessor began.

This isn't exactly what I would call an "alternate history." If you're looking for something like that, may I recommend David Brooks' piece in the New York Times this week?

While his column rightfully could be considered an example of Monday morning quarterbacking, Brooks does suggest a plausible scenario in which the prospects for the midterm elections wouldn't be as dire for the Democrats — even if the employment numbers were fundamentally unchanged.

American voters may seem like petulant children to Robinson, but the lessons one learns from childhood do have a staying power all their own. They can continue to guide one's steps in adulthood.

And, while I may seem blase about the concept of being fair, I do understand that desire for fairness, justice and all that — and the bitterness one can feel when fair treatment has been denied.

I recall that, when I was about 6, I found myself in a situation in which the people around me were discussing something of which I knew nothing. I don't remember the specifics — or what I opted to do in that situation except that, whatever I did, it must have backfired on me because I felt compelled to discuss it with my mother.

(For some reason, I think this incident involved a discussion some of my peers were having about a TV program. But not everyone had a TV in those days, and it seems to me that, at the time, my family didn't have a TV set, so I knew nothing about TV programs. I probably felt left out of the conversation and decided to change the subject to something I knew about — resulting in a predictable outcome.)

Anyway, Mom told me there would be times in my life when the people around me would be discussing something in which I had no interest or knowledge to contribute to the conversation. In such situations, she told me, there were three things I could do. I could

• ignore the feelings of those I am with and change the subject to something I feel more comfortable talking about,
• try to contribute to the conversation, even though I have nothing to add to it, thereby embarrassing myself and wasting the others' time, or
• be respectful of those who are talking and remain silent.

She told me the third option was the best. And, although I don't remember the specifics of the incident that led to this conversation, I still remember what she told me: "Show courtesy and respect for others, and wait your turn."

I loved my mother very much, and I always wanted to please her. I don't recall if her answer made sense to me at the time, but it made sense to her, and that was all I needed to know.

As I think back on moments from my childhood, it occurs to me that I accepted many of the things Mom told me on face value. I didn't always understand the things she told me or the advice she gave me — and, in that case, I may well have been equally influenced, even if I didn't realize it, by the admonition that supposedly came from Mark Twain that "It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt" — but if she believed it, I believed it, too.

I guess I should have asked more questions, though, because there have been times since Mom died when I have wondered if the sense of justice and fair play that she passed along to me might have been somewhat askew. Or maybe I've just applied her lessons wrong.

I know of at least one occasion about five or six years ago when I was having lunch with a group, and the women in the group were discussing something to which I had nothing to contribute. I don't remember now what the subject was, only that it was something I knew nothing about.

I was in a situation I had neither foreseen nor prepared for. I was also sensitive to traditional gender roles, and I was aware of the issues that always exist just beneath the surface, even if they aren't spoken out loud. I didn't want to trample on anyone's feet. And there were other factors at work as well.

So Mom's advice kicked in. I sat there in silence. I thought I was being courteous and respectful. Apparently, it wasn't taken that way. I say "apparently" not because any of the women in the group ever showed me the courtesy of telling me that my silence had been offensive to them in any way but because one of them told someone else — and he told me.

I've been paying the price for my "transgression" ever since. So much, I suppose, for the sense of fair play and justice in which I believed since I was a child.

Well, that's on a very small (albeit personal) scale. And it may not be entirely applicable.

Maybe I would have gotten the same response if I had said something stupid or insisted on changing the subject. Considering what I have long known of these people who have crucified me ever since for remaining silent, I was in a no–win situation. I believe there was nothing I could have done that would have been right in their eyes, even if I had had hours to carefully consider my options because nothing I have ever said or done has been right in their eyes.

I guess the moral for a president, who faces more demanding critics, is that there are times — especially when the economy sucks — when a president is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

Maybe it's like the moral I always drew from "Short Cuts," Robert Altman's film of several Raymond Carver stories that eventually intersect.

One of those stories dealt with a young boy who was hit by a car being driven by a woman who was distracted by her personal problems. The woman tried to persuade the boy to let her take him to his home, but he seemed OK and, because his mother had always told him never to accept a ride with strangers, he politely refused her offer and insisted he was all right.

But he wasn't. Apparently, he had severe injuries that became more and more apparent after he got home. He fell into a coma and was rushed to the hospital, where he eventually died. His parents spent virtually every waking moment by his side.

Meanwhile, a baker who had been commissioned to bake a cake for the boy's upcoming birthday grew angrier and angrier as the days passed and no one came to pick up the special order (and pay him for all his hard work). The baker, knowing nothing of what had happened to the boy, began making harassing, anonymous calls to the parents' home.

It's always seemed to me that the moral was that life would be a lot simpler and things would turn out a lot better if people knew the whole story before they jumped to conclusions (as neatly as such conclusions may fit their particular world view).

The baker probably wouldn't have made those calls if he had known the family was facing a crisis. And that crisis might have been avoided if the boy had realized that, when his mother told him not to accept rides with strangers, she didn't mean to turn down a ride from someone who has hit you with her car and wants to make sure you are all right.

For that matter, the driver of the car never knew the fatal consequences of her inattentiveness. She told her husband about the incident, but she believed it had been a narrow escape.

Anyway, the grieving parents put two and two together and confronted the baker about the phone calls. When he learned what had happened to the boy, he regretted making the calls and tried to do what he could to make amends for his behavior, offering them some of his freshly baked rolls. "You should eat something at a time like this," he said. And they accepted his offering, perhaps more as a courtesy than because they were hungry.

And the rolls were good. I haven't read all of Carver's short stories, but I have read that one — eventually, I'd like to read the others that were brought to the screen in Altman's movie — and it describes the reassuring flavor of the rolls and the soothing warmth of the kitchen. The parents had not asked for the rolls, but they were good and the parents were grateful for the baker's act of kindness.

But the baker couldn't give the parents the one thing they did ask for. When the mother asked if she could see the cake he had made for her son, he had to confess that he had thrown it away.

And maybe that really is the moral of the story.

Sometimes the damage is done. Sometimes it is too late to know the whole story — or for that knowledge to make a difference.

Future Shock

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Did you ever see the original film version of "Carrie," the one starring Sissy Spacek?

If you did, you could never forget the ending. Amy Irving, whose character was the sole survivor of the bloody prom night, has a peaceful, reverent dream in which she takes flowers to the land where Carrie's house once stood. As she is placing the flowers beneath a For Sale sign on the property, a bloody hand reaches up through the rubble and grabs her wrist. She wakes from the dream screaming hysterically.

The calm has been shattered. The facade is in ruins.

Isn't that a great analogy for the human experience?

It's an analogy the Democrats might want to think about after the votes have been counted in November. Because it seems likely to be their experience.

Thinking about it back in the spring, or the winter — or, preferably, a year ago — would have been better. It might have mitigated the damage. But, at this point, thinking about what might have been only squanders what little time remains.

Just like Amy Irving's character, they seem more than willing to march directly into a disaster zone (Danger, Will Robinson), intentionally oblivious to the threat — and, what is worse, unwilling to learn anything from it. They're like the guy who has a terrible toothache but ignores the pain, hoping it will go away — which, of course, it never does.

But, unfortunately, in this case, the toothache is only a symptom of a much more serious affliction. You see it every day in individuals — the inclination to blame others for their own failures. Sometimes, that is legitimate. Most of the time, it is not.

When Barack Obama won the presidency and Democrats built huge congressional majorities in 2008, they seemed to understand the terrible economic pain being inflicted on Americans. Job losses continued to mount during the presidential transition — so much so that, only a couple of weeks after the election, Gail Collins of the New York Times suggested that Bush should resign and let Democrats take over early, immediately implementing the clear will of the people.

That kind of thinking — tongue in cheek though it may have been — ignored the facts that (a) some states and districts that had been voting Republican for decades voted for Democrats in what may have been temporary electoral tantrums while others continued to vote Republican in spite of the Democratic wave sweeping the country, and (b) many of the voters who propelled the Democrats in 2008 belong to demographic groups with historically low voter participation rates and were enticed to come to the polls by Obama's charisma.

Perhaps some of those voters will participate in November, even though Obama is not on the ballot. If they don't, perhaps they will return to the polls in two years, when Obama is on the ballot. After that, my guess is that — in the absence of someone who is comparably charismatic and committed to the same agenda as Obama — their participation will decline steadily until it returns to its historic levels.

Unless those groups establish a better track record, they can't be considered likely voters, and Democratic nominees, especially those in traditionally Republican states and districts, shouldn't rely on their help.

I got the impression that Democrats saw a long–term, generational shift in political philosophy and allegiance in the election of 2008. Perhaps, when historians review the record of this administration decades from now, that is what they will see. But right now, there is no evidence of the sustained participation of greater numbers of young, black and/or progressive voters that Obama and the Democrats will need if they are to solidify their grip on power.

Personally, I felt the election of 2008 turned into a cult of personality campaign. Many of the voters who participated for what may have been the only time in their adult lives in 2008 may be drawn back to the polls in 2012 when Obama is on the ballot, but without him, the party's chances of retaining these voters are grim.

You don't have to be much of an historian to know that. But apparently some people need to have it spelled out for them — a task that is apt to be accomplished in November.

Well, at least Irving's character did have a few legitimate excuses for not seeing what was coming — nobody warned her, and it was a dream.

The Democrats of 2010, however, have been getting plenty of warnings for more than a year. They are like the people in the flatlands who can see a storm coming long before it arrives. But they don't heed the warnings.

Then, in November, the TV cameras will show Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi with those "deer in the headlights" expressions on their faces.

And, because of their neglect or arrogance or both, what is going to happen to them in November will be no dream. A nightmare, perhaps, but no dream.

They're going into it prepared to wage war — but they're fighting against the same things they fought against in the last two election campaigns — Republican policies, foreign and domestic, and the incompetent Republican administration.

It's George W. Bush's fault, they will say.

And, if history is any indicator — which it almost always is — the voters will agree with them. Poll after poll showed that the voters agreed with Ronald Reagan in 1982 when he asserted that America's economic problems were the fault of the Democrats and Reagan's predecessor, Jimmy Carter.

But those same polls also showed that voters felt it was irrelevant.

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What Reagan and the Republicans didn't get was that the voters felt they had already punished Carter and the Democrats. They had given Reagan and the Republicans the opportunity they sought, but improvements were slow — too slow.

CNN's "Political Ticker" reports that Democrats are unveiling a new advertisement in their autumn arsenal (see above). It ends with a shot at Bush.

The message, which will be instantly recognizable to anyone who remembers the early 1980s, is "stay the course." It isn't phrased that way, of course. After all, the last thing 21st century Democrats want to be perceived as doing is taking a page from the playbook of the last truly successful — and now dead — Republican president.

But, in 1982, he pleaded with the voters to "stay the course," to give him and his party more time to turn things around. The voters weren't feeling terribly generous. They didn't give control of the Senate back to the Democrats, from whom they had taken majority status and given it to the Republicans.

But their anger with the Republicans in 1982 was visible in the races for House seats. America had taken 49 House seats from the Democrats and given them to the Republicans in the 1978 and 1980 elections. In 1982, they took 26 back and gave them to the Democrats.

Sounds a lot like what I expect in 2010. The evidence of the coming political tsunami is building all around them. The latest Rothenberg Political Report projections anticipate a 28–33 seat gain in the House and a 5–8 seat gain in the Senate — not quite enough to flip control of either chamber but enough to stall the Democrats for the next two years.

And it remains to be seen what kind of an effect the general campaigns will have on things.

Undoubtedly, there are some Democrats who would prefer that Obama did not come to their states or districts this fall. His approval ratings have been mostly in the 40s this year.

Nearly a year ago, Brent Budowsky wrote in The Hill that it was "showtime" for the Democrats.

Showtime has come and gone. The clock is ticking now, and time is running out.

When You Promise Change, You'd Better Deliver

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And pronto.

Sometimes I think Barack Obama and the Democrats would rather not talk much about the 2008 campaign — unless it means an easy opening for bashing George W. Bush some more.

But that "hope" and "change" rhetoric is going to ring rather hollow in the ears of the vanishing middle class, especially those who have been out of work for awhile.

I have no doubt that Obama's diehard supporters will insist that he has delivered change in his first 19 months in office.

The validity of that position, I suppose — to borrow another president's words — depends on what your definition of is is.

Perception — as I have said many times — is reality. So I understand the rationale of those in the Obama camp who believe they can reason their way out of an electoral disaster.

And, for them, it may be sufficient to recite those achievements in the apparent belief that the voters simply need to be reminded who was running the show when the economy imploded and what the Democrats have been doing to try to salvage it.

For the most part, theirs seems to be a record that is consistent with their apparent objectives and beliefs (whether stated or unstated).

Obama and his fellow Democrats did enact a massive stimulus, even though unemployment continued to go up through 2009 and now appears stuck between 9.5% and 10% (not counting those whose benefits have expired or who are part–timers or otherwise "underemployed") — and even though many economists said at the time, and continue to say, that it wasn't large enough.

He pushed through a massive health care reform package — which, actually, won't be implemented for several years.

He nominated two women to the Supreme Court, both of whom were approved without much opposition.

The voters — those crummy ingrates — aren't giving the president and the Democrats the credit they deserve, Obama seems to feel, so he has been reminding voters lately of all the things he's done for them, how his initiatives are going to make things better in the future. And this looks like something he'll be doing quite a bit between now and November.

Now, all that long–term stuff is good, and all the lovely projections are nice to talk about. But let's be honest here. If you're a working man who has lost his job and can't pay his mortgage and can't feed his kids, that is what is going to dominate your agenda from one election to the next.

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A lot of those people voted for Democrats in 2006 and 2008 (especially 2008). In 2010, they're frustrated by the slow pace of job gains — which, last month, weren't gains at all — and they aren't concerned about political philosophy or anything else except jobs.

From where they sit, if the Democrats haven't been able to deliver, maybe the Republicans have learned something from spending the last few years in the wilderness. Or, like the woman in the video, they just might not bother to vote at all this time.

When you are elected president under a banner of "CHANGE," that is what the voters expect.

Now.

Clearly visible change.

The initiatives and the appointments for which Obama can claim credit may well bear fruit many years from now — and future historians may sing his praises, as modern historians do today for some one–term presidents who acted in what they believed were the long–term interests of the nation but ignored the short term by which they and the members of their party were judged.

Now, like Ronald Reagan 28 years before, Obama wants voters to "stay the course." But voters in 1982 were much like the voters in 2010. They changed parties in the White House two years earlier, and improvements were hard to see by the time the midterm elections rolled around.

That was bad news for Republicans, who had made much of the Democrats' quarter–century hold on congressional power with their "Vote Republican. For a Change" campaign in 1980 (see clip at top of post).

They had persuaded voters to give them both the White House and control of the Senate. They hadn't won control of the House, but they gained 34 seats, and Republicans were able to persuade enough of the remaining Democrats to vote with them to implement what became known as the "Reagan Revolution."

But the revolution seemed to have profited the rich and the elite, not the working class — and the working class gave 25 House seats back to the Democrats. At this point in 1982, Reagan (whose approval rating was in the 50s and 60s for most of his first year in office) had an approval rating of 41% — which just happens to be where Obama's job approval currently stands, according to Gallup.

By the time Americans went to the polls in November 1982, Reagan's approval had crept up to 43%.

A pretty face, John Lennon wrote nearly four decades ago, may last a year or two "but pretty soon they'll see what you can do."

And, at a time when Americans have been crying out for job creation, the answer to that one is, "Not much."

Lessons From History

Few people have been studying American politics as long as Michael Barone, who has co–authored the biennial "Almanac of American Politics" since 1972.

When you hear Barone speak, it is fairly clear that he views things from a conservative perspective, but, as one who has been reading those almanacs for many years, I can assure you that he maintains his neutrality in his assessments of states and congressional districts. He may not agree with the voting history of a particular state or district, but he never allows that to interfere with his Joe Friday just–the–facts–ma'am approach.

If you lean to the left politically, your view of him may be skewed by the knowledge that he is a conservative, but it would be a serious mistake to allow that personal bias to deny you the benefit of his considerable expertise.

Anyway ...

If you have been reading midterm–oriented commentary in the last six months or so, you have undoubtedly seen many references to the 1982 and 1994 midterm elections, when two men (Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton) who had been elected president because of bad economies just two years earlier suffered midterm setbacks for the same reason.

Many people, including myself, have speculated that Barack Obama is walking down that same path.

I have not always agreed with the reasoning that others have used to arrive at that conclusion. I can only speak for myself, and my conclusion has been based on certain historical observations, the most basic being that midterm elections almost always go against the president's party.

Sometimes the losses have not been severe — almost always because the prevailing conditions have not been too severe. But when the economy is bad and unemployment is high, the president's party suffers — even if, as Obama's supporters repeatedly insist, the problems began when someone else was in charge.

The vast majority of the arguments on this focus on 1982 and 1994 because those are the most recent examples, the ones most people are likely to remember.

But Barone has applied his scholarly study of elections to an intriguing article in The American that examines what happened in the first election after the end of World War II.

In "What 1946 Can Tell Us About 2010," Barone writes, "Republicans in that election gained 13 seats in the Senate and emerged with a 51–45 majority there, the largest majority that they enjoyed between 1930 and 1980. And they gained 55 seats in the House, giving them a 246–188 majority in that body, the largest majority they have held since 1930."

In his essay — which deserves to be read in its entirety — Barone writes of the similarities he sees between 1946 and 2010:

1. Democrats were promising (or threatening) to vastly increase the size and scope of government.
2. Democrats in 1945–1946 were closely allied with labor unions, which were deeply involved in politics and were avidly seeking more members and more bargaining power.
3. In both 1945–1946 and 2009–2010, opposition to Democrats rose and support of Republicans increased during the electoral cycle, but those increases came later in the cycle in 1945–1946 than they have in 2009–2010.

Barone writes that Republican gains in 1946 were all the more impressive because the Republicans "did not seriously contest most seats in the South." That shouldn't really surprise anyone, least of all Barone with his background. In 1946, the really influential events of the civil rights era had not yet happened, and it was civil rights, more than anything, that led to the political schism in the South. There were hints of what was to come two years later, when the passage of the civil rights plank of the party platform prompted some Southern Democrats to support Strom Thurmond's segregationist Dixiecrat ticket in the 1948 presidential election. But Democrats continued to dominate the politics of the South for the next 20 years. A lot of things were different in 1946. Times have changed. The fortunes of both parties have ebbed and flowed in the last 64 years. Nearly all of the American voters who were old enough to participate in the 1946 midterms are gone now, but their descendants remain and many of them probably perpetuate their parents' and grandparents' political views and voting behavior, the same as they share their family names. Parallels between the two years could produce similar results with the electorate. And, writes Barone, "[t]he parallels between the political situation in 1946 and 2010 are limited but instructive." Of course, one of the instructive points that needs to be taken from Barone's essay is that 1946 represents a worst–case scenario for Democrats. Even Barone acknowledges from the beginning of his essay that 1946 was "the biggest Republican victory of the last 80 years." When the economy is productive (or at least stable), when unemployment is low, when the times are not turbulent, there is less of an inclination on the part of voters to make wholesale change in a midterm election.

And a fact that isn't mentioned in the essay is that, by 1946, Republicans had been in the minority in both houses of Congress for nearly 20 years. That much time spent out of power can bolster the case for change and make things difficult for the majority party — even if the majority party has managed to avoid corruption and scandal.

But conditions are far from ideal, and the Democrats haven't demonstrated that they are more resistant to corruption and scandal than the Republicans were when they were in charge. It will be up to the voters to decide whether that negates the advantages Democrats enjoyed in the last two elections.

The Democrats would be wise to take whatever they can from Barone's assessment.

Perhaps there is little, at this point, that the Democrats can do to change their electoral fate. If so, I can tell you something else that Obama has in common with Reagan and Clinton — whether it is justified or not, he projects the assurance that the course he is following is exactly what is called for, that it is right, that more time is needed before it will be clear to all — or, at least, to most.

That attitude didn't sell in the midterms of 1982 and 1994, and it may not sell in 2010, but it got both Reagan and Clinton re–elected, and it might serve Obama equally well.

Right now, Obama appears to want a second term. But you never know. He might change his mind if he has to spend two years scrapping with a hostile majority — or a hostile and reinforced minority — in Congress.

Coping With Unemployment

It seems that, no matter the angle from which it is observed, unemployment is in rarely charted waters.

Whether it's seen from the perspective of "new claims" filed or a "four-week moving average," things haven't been this bad since 1982, Reuters reports.

I guess things wouldn't have to be so bad if more employers lived by no-layoff policies. Don't think such a thing is possible in today's economy? Jessica Dickler writes, in CNNMoney.com, that some companies have long abided by a no-layoffs rule — and insist that they will continue to operate that way.

Certainly, the economy forces everyone to make some concessions. And these companies, Dickler says, sometimes ask their employees to make sacrifices.

But the employees themselves are not sacrificed.

Such an enlightened approach to the management-employee relationship might be part of the ultimate solution, although it seems unlikely that this recession will be regarded as milder than the one that confronted America in 1982.

What was the world like a quarter of a century ago?

Well, like today, the United States was in the grip of a recession — economic historians will tell you it was short but severe. I guess any recession seems severe when you're living through it.

We'll need to let more time pass before we know how long this recession is, but I think the consensus would be that it's going to be remembered as severe, whatever the duration may be.

In November of 1982, the Republicans managed to add slightly to the majority they gained in the Senate two years earlier, but Democrats picked up nearly 30 seats in the House — in spite of President Reagan's pleas to voters to "stay the course."

Unleaded gas was selling for around $1.28 a gallon in 1982. That's less than we pay today — but not nearly so sharp a decline as it is from what we were paying a few months ago.

So, if you're out of work, it doesn't cost as much to drive to interviews. But cash-strapped cities still charge outrageous fees for parking — and waste little time issuing tickets to violators when their meters expire.

First-class postage stamps cost about half what they cost today.

The popular songs Americans heard on their radios in 1982 were "Eye of the Tiger," "Ebony and Ivory," "Physical" and "I Love Rock 'n' Roll."

When they sought other forms of escapism, their favorite movies dealt with the supernatural ("E.T." and "Poltergeist"), sexual identity ("Tootsie" and "Victor/Victoria"), soldiers ("An Officer and a Gentleman"), sequels ("Rocky III" and "Star Trek II") and smut ("Porky's").

And Americans looked for inspiration wherever they could find it.

In 1982, a man named Larry Walters, who had been frustrated in his dream of being an Air Force pilot by poor eyesight, bought 45 weather balloons and some helium tanks. He and his girlfriend attached the balloons to his lawn chair and filled them with helium. Wearing a parachute and strapped into the chair, Walters also had beer, sandwiches, a CB radio, a camera and his pellet gun.

His friends cut the cord that tied the chair to his vehicle, and off he went. It is estimated that he reached an altitude of about 15,000 feet, ultimately sailing into federal airspace over Long Beach, Calif. Walters used the pellet gun to shoot a few of the balloons, and the chair began its descent. Some of the dangling lines got tangled in a power line, causing a 20-minute blackout, but Walters was able to get to the ground, where he was taken into custody.

Asked why he did it, the now (temporarily) famous Walters said, "A man can't just sit around."

Kind of reminds me of what Willie Sutton supposedly said when he was asked why he robbed banks: "Because that's where the money is."

Many Americans never heard of Oskar Schindler until Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film "Schindler's List" in the early 1990s. But the book upon which it was based, Thomas Keneally's "Schindler's Ark," was published in 1982.

Schindler had to resort to creative techniques to save more than 1,000 people who almost certainly would have been casualties of the Nazi regime — yet his efforts were virtually unknown by much of the world until Spielberg made his movie nearly half a century later.

Unusual times require unusual measures. Perhaps that's the lesson to be applied to 2008.