When the Soviets had us at the end of an ICBM (give or take several thousand), a nation that was losing its resolve turned to a washed-up actor for deliverance. The actor took the stage, told the Soviets what to do, and they did it. Then other actors rose up and told us that the first actor was bad, and we listened to them.

When planes took down the World Trade Center and wrought terror across the country, a nation sitting atop a bursting economic bubble looked to a man derided as an “amiable dunce” to reassert America’s interests throughout the world. More actors showed up and undermined his doctrine, so that even the author of the doctrine seems to have lost much of his resolve.

I see a pattern.

The nation goes downhill. Something bad happens. The nation gets its act together. Conditions improve. The nation slides back into its old ways. Something else bad happens.

Sounds as much like the divided kingdoms of Israel as it does the U. S. of A.

So yeah, if and when the nuke goes off, we’ll do better for a while. Then we’ll slide back. And so the pattern will continue, over and over, until the final Kingdom is established. Amen.

I figure, if after the eventual nuclear strike on our nation (I agree with Hugh, it’s not a matter of if, but when) our resolve wanes, then I say:

We deserve what we get.

“It will never happen,” PDiddy? When somebody ultimately succeeds in nuking one of our cities (and let’s face it, it’s only a matter of time… as in, when, not if), I think Congress will start singing a different tune.

It happened in Britain under Churchill. It might well happen here, and I see a lot of similarities between the Speaker and Sir Winston.

Except Sir Winston had better one-liners.

In other words, government agencies that fail will not be allowed to continue to fail.

The bureaucracy we have now basically says, “Awww, you failed. We probably didn’t give you enough money… oh, shucks, here’s some more. Now do better next time!”

Under a metrics-based system, this would change to “You failed. You are the weakest link. Goodbye. Next!”

I hate to say it, but it’s kind of George Steinbrenner-like.