CSotD: The Precedential Campaign

And he's right that the archivist at the Chemung County Historical Society is a rare resource. Rather than just trotting out the usual pieces and telling us not to touch them, she actually listened to what we were doing and then quickly found exactly what we needed. She even got a little excited about things and joined in some of the planning of how two characters might logically run into each other at a particular place at a particular time and helped provide evidence to make it work.

It was about 700 miles round-trip, and, after I dropped him off at his place, I had a little over a two hour drive left, during which I listened to the debate and the hot air that followed, which not only fit in with yesterday's rant about self-important experts but with today's xkcd about stupid and pointless predictive statements.

For all the knee-jerk yapping and whining from the right about the "liberal media," I think the media in general has done a nice job of announcing regularly, ever since the first debate, how very badly Obama did then and how little anything he's done since has helped his cause.

And of declaring over and over what a fine job Romney has done in catching up and surpassing Obama. 

And how futile it is for Obama to even continue at this point. Yes, they declared last night, he won the debate, but it doesn't matter. Too little, too late. His fate is sealed. We so declare it.

No left-handed African-American president who seemed unenergized in his initial debate with a Mormon challenger has ever won re-election. Not ever. Not once. You could look it up!

Okay, nobody actually said that.

But the fact remains that no pundits who made me think of Edgar Guest's execrable doggerel have ever re-won my respect.

It Couldn't Be Done

Edgar Guest

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,

But he with a chuckle replied

That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one

Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing 
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;

At least no one ever has done it";

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start to sing as you tackle the thing

That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.