Well, here we are in Washington!
 
The move went splendidly, although we do seem to be missing a few things; one of which, unfortunately, seems to be Mrs. Feeny. We're sure she'll turn up soon-there's a good chance she's packed in one of the boxes, but we are a little concerned.
 
It's a wonderful time to be in DC, the air is crisp, the leaves are turning, and the Democrats are on the run.
 
We're thrilled to be so near our Maximum Leader! We're close enough to see the little beads of sweat that form on his forehead and upper lip as he struggles manfully with the syntax and content of the things he's been given to say--and he gets it almost right nearly most of the time, too. Gee, he's swell!
 
And the change in locale has not changed us a bit. Your W Team is as feisty as ever. Yesterday we entered into a spirited discussion about time travel. This may surprise you, but our political affinities are good training for such discussions. Once one has accepted the idea of George W. Bush as a great leader, science fiction seems less of a stretch and an entire world of supernatural conjecture opens before one.
 
We explored the subject with great gusto. Opinion was sharply divergent: half maintained that temporal travel would be the spawn of Satan, while the rest of us thought it would be merely evil. Those of us on the latter, or if you will, "liberal" side of the argument maintained that the disorientation would be the worst of it--particularly if the trip were to come as a surprise.
 
Imagine if you will, an inadvertent traveler from the year 1850. Picture this hapless gentleman's confusion as he is plucked from the dark, cozy comfort of his Victorian living room, and suddenly stranded in the hurly-burly of a shopping mall of the 21st century. What shocks would not his flesh inherit? Would not reason totter? Would he not think himself in hell, or possibly Orange County? The abyss would yawn before him (it is hard to excite an abyss) and madness and death would surely follow.
 
In such an event, it is reassuring to know that one might offer the unhappy wayfarer a considerable measure of comfort merely by presenting him with a copy of any editorial by George Will. Immediately our traveler would smile and utter a sigh of relief as he at last recognized something from his own time.
 
George Will is, of course, our conservative intellectual middleweight champion; a celebrated moderate extremist and wittily dyspeptic commander of a vast army of knowledge that, we're certain, he will one day fashion into a coherent philosophy. George Will is as solid as Gibraltar--and twice as impervious to countervailing facts. He has looked closely at reality, has found it to be suspicious, and has risen above it.
 
Soon-to-be ex-Governor, Jesse "The-Body" Ventura has characterized Mr. Will--rather uncharitably, if you ask us--as a "Mealy-mouthed, bespectacled little puke," which we feel strays rather toward the harsh. Surely, we contend, there must be times when Mr. Will does not wear his glasses.
 
Mr. The-Body fails to recognize the good service provided by Mr. Will and his ilk (although we are certain Mr. Will would be the first to inform us that he is ilk-less.) As embodied in George Will, the conservative philosophy is indispensable to the natural order of things. Without conservatives there would be only liberals, and the world would be made chaos by good deeds. Given half a chance, liberals would set about ensuring that poverty, war, starvation and privation were only wistful memories. If liberals had their way the world would become one giant small town, and its name would be "Happyville." The gorge rises.
 
Where would all this lead? It would lead to imbalance, that's where, Life is a juggling act, it depends on contrasts. What is the point of wealth unless others are poor? Where is the joy in health, unless someone else is sick? For that matter, what is joy unless someone is sad? A life without schadenfreude is no life at all, and our nation honors that principle in even its least essential--have you ever heard Muddy Waters sing the "happies"?
 
This state of affairs cannot and should not be changed. Mark our words, if everyone were happy, in no time at all the merely happy would come to resent the very happy, and then we'd be right back where we started. Universal happiness is tantamount to terrorism.
 
Unfortunately this theory of society strikes some as being counter-intuitive and thus requires continual defense. This is the service provided by George Will and others of his disputed ilk: men and women who with great brilliance can articulate why it is a good thing that the rest of us are getting our ribs kicked in on such a regular basis.
 
You may take this to the bank-if you still have a bank--where there are liberals there must be conservatives, and vice-versa. Although, as you would expect, we hold that liberals must be thwarted and frustrated at every turn, but that's what the Democratic Party is for.
 
There is, after all, such a thing as too much balance, as we're certain Mr. Will would agree.
 
*****
This week the Panjandrum of the Potomac describes his experiences with California's gubernatorial race in "Simon Pure and Simple."
 
That's it for this Back-to-the-Web edition. If you're near a fine bookstore you might look for my story "Code Blue" in this month's print edition of The Journal of the Blue Planet. If you're not near a fine bookstore, you can get a copy here.
 
Cheery 'bye,