I don't really get the '68 reference. Yes, things were incredibly bad then. In a social sense, domestically things were even worse than they are now. All of the things that Tom says about '68 are true... but he doesn't finish the story...

Things only got worse after the election.

I mean... I guess his point was "we've seen bad things happen before," but I just don't get that as a point. I don't think you can just say that and assume that things will get better or that we'll recover from anything and everything. It's a somewhat fatalist point of view.

I want to form a 527 and produce David Letterman Commercials.

Middle America might actually listen to a funny guy from Indiana.

"All of the things that Tom says about '68 are true... but he doesn't finish the story...

Things only got worse after the election."

You're right about that. I think Brokaw is at that Friedman-Russert-Brian Williams stage as a journalist where he can only say nice, uplifting things about the country when he's speaking in his own voice.

We had 1968--then we came together as a nation...and had 7 more years of Vietnam, along with an appallingly criminal presidency which ended with a resignation and a serious mid-decade recession?

Think he's right in a sense about the candidates. The two parties could have gone with safer, more boring, crappier nominees. We could have had Bill Frist, Mitt Romney, or some niche demographic Republican, or some Dodd-Biden foreign policy-experienced old white guy nominee from the Dems. 4 years ago the biggest reason Dems cited for supporting Kerry was that he could supposedly beat Bush. This time people voted for someone (Obama or Hillary) that they positively liked.

Things only got worse after the election.

Yep, because they shot the change candidate and the country was given a megalomaniac instead.

This time people voted for someone (Obama or Hillary) that they positively liked.

Ah yes I remember Hillary's slogan now, wasn't it, "Because you like me."

Hillary was the "electable" moderate choice of the party faithful. She wasn't exactly safe, but she had positioned herself in the middle the same way Kerry had.

Kerry was a Vietnam war protest leader. His inevitable defeat came because he could not reconcile his protesting activist past with his moderate pro-war persona.

Dende-Blogger,

I'd happily have had a Dodd presidency over an Obama presidency. He might be an old white guy, but he's an old white guy who actually puts his name on the line for our freedoms.

I'd happily have had a Dodd presidency

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

did you ever witness his stump speech. A candidate can express not ideas or a candidate can be boring, but express no ideas and be boring and I feel insulted that they would make people listen.

That said, he has taken some brave stands since he lost. For that I commend him.

He was only running for VP anyway.