New Year's Resolutions

Going through the Carter Center, despite the humor below, really was a profoundly depressing experience. I grew up in DC, and in many ways, those were my formative political years. Along with the emergence of Ronald Reagan, that explains my lifelong allegiance to the Republican Party. They were years of pessimism, but mostly, years of less. Less money, less time, less world influence. Wear a cardigan and turn down the thermostat to 65. The Brezhnev Doctrine, that Communism could never be turned back in any country, meant less freedom around the world. Small cars became popular, never mind that you just lugged all the stuff on the roof. Smaller houses started to be appealing. David Frum talks a little about this in his book on the 70s. From 1976 to 1980, we were told to expect less, and to make do with it.

This was profoundly un-American, and Reagan, with his expansiveness was the perfect antidote to it. The Left read his optimism as simplemindedness. The country ignored them, and rediscovered its will to do. We got back to being us. In that sense, George W. Bush really is an appropriate heir to his mantle, and thank goodness for that.

So, New Year's is as good a time as any to dream big, and resolve to make those dreams happen.