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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Each U.S. President, said diplomat Clare Boothe Luce, is recalled by a single sentence. Lincoln saved the union. FDR beat Hitler and Depression. Nixon went to China, and resigned. Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.

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In 1977�s Looking For Mr. Goodbar, Diane Keaton tries to save her pathetic, tawdry life.� In 2008, Republicans seek a Mr.Goodbar to save their inchoate, desperate party.�

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In several books, I have addressed America�s great divide: not right v. left, rap v. bluegrass, or Bud Light v. Tangueray. Instead, at some point, each of us becomes a person of substance, or style.

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Vive la differencecry Parisians, who ironically often shrink from judging good v. bad. (One reason they are French.) By contrast, Americans, as writer Mark Reiter says, like making �clearer and cleaner decisions about what is good, better, best in the world.�

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�Are you sitting comfortably?� British broadcaster Julia Long would ask her audience.� �Then I�ll begin.�� The 2008 Presidential Election has already begun.� How and with whom will its carousel of candidates end?

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Some Rotarian!� Gerald R. Ford, dead last week at 93, crooned the fanfare of the (Un)Common Man.� The sole U.S. chief executive not elected to the presidency or vice-presidency tied autobiography (A Time to Heal ) and biography (Frank Capra�s �It�s a Wonderful Life.�)�� Frank Merriwell, or Chip Hilton?� Both lived in Ford.

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The Bible says, “By thy fruits shall ye know them.” We know politicians by heroes. John F.Kennedy’s was Winston Churchill; George McGovern’s, Adlai Stevenson; Richard Nixon, Woodrow Wilson. Heroes reflect who we are and/or admire.

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In 1961, John F. Kennedy held a post-Bay of Pigs news conference musing that “victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” He was to blame, said JFK. Who is culpable for this month�s Republican collapse?

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Discourse with an edge coarsens today�s uncultured culture. Do anything but bore. The wiseacre deserves praise, not bile. Welcome to our me-first cesspool age.

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