In 1916, Robert Frost released his famed four-stanza, 20-line poem, The Road Not Taken. It begins, “Two roads diverged in a yellow road.” For our purpose, label them the past and the future.     

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“I am looking [vainly] for an honest man,” said Diogenes the Ancient Cynic. New Jersey’s blustery, baby-faced Governor, Chris Christie, is a man whose cynicism might amaze even him.

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In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt met Winston Churchill, for the first time, off Newfoundland, to plot the Atlantic Charter. They held a church service on the British battleship Prince of Wales, Churchill choosing the hymns Eternal Father, Strong to save and Onward Christian Soldiers for FDR, an intensely religious man.

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In the musical “Man of La Mancha,” Don Quixote vows to “dream the impossible dream” and “reach … the unreachable star.” Mitt Romney’s question is whether he has done “the impossible”:  blow an unblowable Presidential race.

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To some, progress means bulldozing the past. “America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers,” rued actor James Earl Jones, “erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again.” Steamrolled: battlefields, historic shrines, even homes by eminent domain.

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Paul McCartney sang, “We’re so sorry, Uncle Albert.” Likewise, Mitt Romney may grieve by ignoring the clear slam-dunk Republican candidate for Vice-President. If Florida’s Marco Rubio is inexplicably bypassed, the GOP’s weeping and wailing will make Uncle Albert resemble the Sunshine Kid.

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A maxim says, “Dance with the one that brung you.”  For half-a-century, Democrats have waltzed with leftist pressure groups, bowing and bartering.  By contrast, till George W. Bush the Republican dance card featured Americanism v. tribalism, general v/ special interest, and melting pot v. manic pluralism.

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Are they happy now – ESPN and CNN and the New York Times – for treating Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno like day-old mashed potatoes?

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“I had observed him by this time for several months,” Theodore H. White wrote of Richard Nixon in The Making of the President 1960, “and he had persisted as a puzzle to my mind and understanding.”  To me, Mitt Romney remains a puzzle. Gentle reader, help me unlock, as Churchill called Russia, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

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A man was asked what one thing he would take if his house were on fire. “I would take the fire,” he replied. How pragmatic. How American. We like what works: the individual, among other things creating the light bulb, computer chip, and high-definition television.

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A recent Associated Press-Univision poll of more than 1,500 Hispanics includes a troubling, even stunning, fact: Forty-six percent — a near-majority — do not wish to change to assimilate into America, roughly defined as learning English, prizing American history and tradition, and respecting U.S. law.

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A friend once defined the difference between the men and the boys in politics: “Boys run for office to be someone. Men run to do something.” Manute Bol was not a politician. Far better, as Julius Caesar said, “This was a man!”

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Recently Barack Obama observed — celebrated is not the word — his first year since taking office. Health care is a basket case. Unemployment is near 10 percent, and stuck. The Federal deficit is $1.5 trillion, and soaring. The Nobel Prize’s darling will never be Rookie of the Year.

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“Presidents,” wrote Douglass Cater, “like great French restaurants, have an ambiance all their own.” Each year does, too: 2009’s, annus horibilus. Seldom have so many failed at so much.

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The British statesman Benjamin Disraeli said famously, “The Tory Party is the stupid party.” Segue to its lineal descendant. Today’s Republican elite is hapless, not to mention clueless, even hopeless. Less is not more for the GOP.

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Barack Obama campaigned as George Washington, calming and unifying. Elected, he governs like George McGovern. Tens of millions of Americans feel deceived. They should, since they were.

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In the book, The Walrus and the Carpenter, the walrus eating the oysters says, “I weep for you. I deeply sympathize.” It is hard not to sympathize with New York State’s 55th Governor.

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I admit to often taking George W. Bush to a rhetorical woodshed. “He has the Reverse Midas Touch,” I once wrote. “Everything Bush touches, he destroys.” If you find a harsher non-left critic, this conservative will chant misunderestimate.

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“This is the way the world ends,” T.S. Eliot wrote, famously. “Not with a bang but a whimper.” This is the way good ideas end: not with success but liberal deja vu. Rochester, New York, has passed this way before

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Each Commencement graduates hear a speech, touting those who made a difference. Death is similar, teaching those who live. Taking stock, we sum up and compare. Admiring others, we define ourselves.

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In 1923, Sarah Bernhardt, 78, died a broken actress. Said a friend, “She should have retired at the top of her career.” This month, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, 45, resigning, ended her career — or did she? As Yogi Berra mused, “It’s dangerous to make predictions — especially about the future.”

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My parents taught high school, too busy doing good to worry about getting rich. Each prized learning, deep-down, over trend, skin-deep. Both showed how, not what, to think: creatively, but logically.

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“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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