Well, Eggplant, Old Buddy, that is why God gave you washcloths. So you could scrub the egg off your face.

By 1984, I was telling folks that the USSR would not see the end of the century. I was of course hooted at. Then when it did not make the end of the decade, I was saying that the danger was not yet over, that the die-hards would attempt a coup. I was ignored.
By 1991, that latter prediction came true as well.

Does this make me a genius? No way. Notice how far off my timeing was in the first prediction. Also note that I could in no way predict when or how the bad guys would attempt to seize power.

What I did have going for me was the realization that SDI meant the end of MAD. That in turn let me grasp that Ronald Reagan
had an agenda. To wit: “We win. They lose.”
Having read Pournelle?Possony “Strategy of Technology” helped.

In the second case, my Austrian economic principles let me know that some people were simply incapable of accepting the end of their fantasy world and were compelled to try and overcome it with the only means available to them.

I just hope and pray that my current and future errors are no worse than these.

The question of the hour is why do the “hedgehogs” have so much more credibility that the “foxes”? Well, there used to be a saying among carnival mentalists/psychics: “You will never go broke predicting gloom and doom”. So notice that con artists take that to heart. BUT, and this is an important BUT: Pie in the Sky is the flip side of that coin. So the Gore-hogs, Buchanan-hogs, Paul-hogs set the stage for the cheerful-appearing Obama-hog to cash in on the opportunity to be that flip side.

And before I even try to prognosticate about the next four years, I will wait and see who wins and how before I try to analyze capabilites and go from there.

I just make it a point to Trust in God and keep the 1911 at full cock.