Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with a column by Michael Barone.

Here.

Both the Rays and the Yankees won today, so Tampa Bay’s magic number to eliminate New York is down to 57.

Here is a scene from today’s penultimate stage of the Tour de France. The stage was won by German cyclist Stefan Schumacher, who averaged 30.95 miles per hour on the 32.9-mile course. Spaniard Carlos Sastre held off Australian Cadel Evans to win the Tour. Yes, there is one stage to go, but as far as the general classification is concerned, it’ll be ceremonial.

Addendum: Here is the New York Times story.

I hate to say it, but my beloved Detroit Tigers (52-51) are done for the season. Tonight, they lost their second consecutive one-run game—at home—to the division-leading Chicago White Sox (59-43). They’re eight games behind in the loss column. If the White Sox win only half their remaining games, they’ll finish 89-73. The Tigers will have to go 37-22 (.627) just to tie. Neither is likely.

I will continue my Yankee bashing as long as the Tigers stay at or above .500, which may not be long, the way they’re playing.

Here.

To the Editor:

“Optimism without reality isn’t eloquence,” David Brooks writes. “It’s just Disney.”

I disagree. Without a vision, change cannot become reality.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was also right that without President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not have been passed. That does not make the contribution of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. any less significant. Without Dr. King’s optimistic vision of a different world, no Civil Rights Act would have been proposed.

Do I expect to be disappointed if Mr. Obama is elected? Of course. He won’t be able to heal the world in four years.

Given a choice between optimism and more of the same, however, the choice is clear.

Marian S. Lubinsky
New York, July 25, 2008

Note from KBJ: How about eight years?

Here is an op-ed column about Our Savior.

Every society, by the underlinings it makes in the book of its history, constructs a legend of its own fortunes which it keeps up to date and in which is hidden its own understanding of its politics; and the historical investigation of this legend—not to expose its errors but understand its prejudices—must be a pre-eminent part of a political education.

(Michael Oakeshott, “Political Education,” in his Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, new and expanded ed. [Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1991], 43-69, at 63 [essay first published in 1951])

Here is your entertainment for this Saturday evening.