Two days after Halloween

It's almost here. I can feel it in the stretched nerves, the touchiness and the watchfulness.

James Lileks was feeling it on Hugh's show today, as was Roger Simon. Why should it bother us so much that the nation might lurch back into Clintonian foreign policy? Maybe it's the sense that Kerry's approach would be a disaster for the Iraqis, that our response to the murders of 9/11, returning liberation for malevolence, will be "twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools." Maybe it's the fear that our country has passed its peak and is headed into a slow decline, like that of the Romans, but much too soon. Maybe it's the sick feeling that we are too comfortable, too fat and happy to do what our parents barely hesitated to do at far greater sacrifice.

Whatever happens, this year has left me with a sickening feeling that an evil is taking hold at a deep level in the Home of the Brave, the evil of rich indolence, of Sundays watching football and complaining when our sitcoms are interrupted by a news flash.

Update: Even Scrappleface seems to have a feel of grim irony.