“Are you comfortably sitting? Then I’ll begin,” said British broadcaster Julia Lang, introducing a story.  The story of baseball’s Artful Dodger shows why Winston Churchill termed English “bullets that become ammunition.” Since mid-century, Vin Scully has used words to scale a hill of syntax and vocabulary, a peak of place and mood. 

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On August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon, resigning, left the White House. “You will be remembered as a great President,” consoled Henry Kissinger. Nixon replied: “Henry, that depends on who writes the history.” It has been 16 years since George H.W. Bush left office a one-term President. What does history say? What it didn’t then.

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The 2008 campaign’s People’s Choice and Runner-up were decided Election Day.  The second-largest winner and loser were chosen long before:  Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, who died in 1994 and 1996, respectively; and the national media, most of whose honor died long ago.

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Several years ago a friend moved from Rochester, New York, back to Cleveland. Where did he plan to live? I asked. “Anywhere but Shaker Heights,” he said, having grown up among the suburb’s hip, posh, and politically correct.

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This is a valentine I could, would, never write. Yet write I do, because praise I must a woman who would not go into the good night gently � indeed, at all.

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Insanity is said to be doing the same thing, expecting a different result.� By that measure, today�s culture is insane.� Increasingly, we rely on an ipod or video game to help think and learn.� Lacking:� a voice of sanity to fight deviancing-and dumbing-down.

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�I�ve been outspent 20 to 1,� bare-boned Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee often tells a crowd. �[Just like] you feel you have been outspent 20 to 1 in just about everything you have ever tried to do.� Unlike, say, Hillary Clinton�s, his audience�s tears are real.

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Recently Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney defended his Mormon faith, hailed America�s Judeo-Christian tradition, and scorned bigots pining to drive religion from the public square.� His tour de force was brilliantly written and passionately given.� Such amalgams are hard to find.�����

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Sam Cook sang �Don�t know much about history.� Churchill called all history biography. In his 1989 Farewell Address as President, Ronald Reagan warned that America couldn�t grasp what it is unless we knew what we�d been.

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Broadcaster Bob Costas recently lauded PBS Television�s late-night talkster.� �He�s doing exactly what he was born to do,� Bob said of Charlie Rose.� �Perfect guy, in his perfect job.�

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Last November, voting for Eliot Spitzer for New York Governor, I recalled Charles Dickens� Great Expectations.� �Will Spitzer live up to expectations, or down?�� I later wrote.� Few ask any more.

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Don�t lie down with dogs. You brought this on yourself. We get what we deserve. All describe the National Basketball Association, where fouling out has replaced tuning in.

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Several years ago, writing ESPN�s SportsCentury, I interviewed college football�s nonpareil Voice, then weighing retirement. I asked if he had tired of Touchdown Jesus and Happy Valley and Army�s long, gray line.

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Each U.S. President, said diplomat Clare Boothe Luce, is recalled by a single sentence. Lincoln saved the union. FDR beat Hitler and Depression. Nixon went to China, and resigned. Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.

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In 1977�s Looking For Mr. Goodbar, Diane Keaton tries to save her pathetic, tawdry life.� In 2008, Republicans seek a Mr.Goodbar to save their inchoate, desperate party.�

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In several books, I have addressed America�s great divide: not right v. left, rap v. bluegrass, or Bud Light v. Tangueray. Instead, at some point, each of us becomes a person of substance, or style.

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Vive la differencecry Parisians, who ironically often shrink from judging good v. bad. (One reason they are French.) By contrast, Americans, as writer Mark Reiter says, like making �clearer and cleaner decisions about what is good, better, best in the world.�

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�Are you sitting comfortably?� British broadcaster Julia Long would ask her audience.� �Then I�ll begin.�� The 2008 Presidential Election has already begun.� How and with whom will its carousel of candidates end?

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Some Rotarian!� Gerald R. Ford, dead last week at 93, crooned the fanfare of the (Un)Common Man.� The sole U.S. chief executive not elected to the presidency or vice-presidency tied autobiography (A Time to Heal ) and biography (Frank Capra�s �It�s a Wonderful Life.�)�� Frank Merriwell, or Chip Hilton?� Both lived in Ford.

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The Bible says, “By thy fruits shall ye know them.” We know politicians by heroes. John F.Kennedy’s was Winston Churchill; George McGovern’s, Adlai Stevenson; Richard Nixon, Woodrow Wilson. Heroes reflect who we are and/or admire.

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In 1961, John F. Kennedy held a post-Bay of Pigs news conference musing that “victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” He was to blame, said JFK. Who is culpable for this month�s Republican collapse?

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Discourse with an edge coarsens today�s uncultured culture. Do anything but bore. The wiseacre deserves praise, not bile. Welcome to our me-first cesspool age.

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Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Recently, two parties came to a fork on civil rights. One road unites America. The other divides by race. Juan Williams prefers the former. Many school districts clearly like the latter.

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Sam Cooke sang, “Don’t know much about history. Don’t know much biology.” Antipodal was an old TV ad: “Bo [Jackson] knows baseball.” Sadly, football’s Heisman Trophy honoree went belly up in the bigs.

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In television’s “Jesus of Nazareth,” Judas betrays the Man from Galilee. A Roman soldier asks, “What kind of person are you, if I may ask?” His query is universal — since what we are dwarfs what we have.

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CBS TV’s Mike Wallace, 87, has interviewed hundreds of people: Eleanor Roosevelt, JFK and LBJ, beloved Ike. Recently he named the one person he hoped, but failed, to interview: the First Lady whose Secret Service code was “Starlight.”

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