The Doomsday Machine

Glenn Reynolds quotes Gregg Easterbrook:

Democratic attacks on Mr. McCain and Republican attacks on Mr. Obama both seek to punish impermissibly positive thoughts. At a time when there exists a sense of crisis over the economy, fuel prices and many other issues, this reinforces the odd, two realities of life in the United States today: The way we are, and the way we think we are. The way we are could use some work, but overall, is pretty good. The way we think we are is terrible, horrible, awful. Possibly worse.

Well, yeah. Check out this recent doomsday riff from David Letterman, who, during the 1980s, despite the equally eeeeevil Reagan being in charge was far too cool and ironic to be this morose about life:

Guys talking about the President really can’t do anything about the economy. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but let’s give them that one, let’s just say