With the standard caveats that it's only September, much work must yet be done, and that we can't take anything for granted in the Presidential race, I'd like to ask everyone reading this to clear your minds of the clutter of the current news cycle for a moment, and try to peer with me into the future.
It is 2009. Barack Obama is now our President. His first 100 days in office are shaping up as a whirlwind of change. He is systematically dismantling the unconstitutional executive privileges to which George W. Bush helped himself for the last eight years. He is, as promised, beginning a measured and steady drawdown of troops from Iraq. His legislative proposals, with a 50-vote Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, are sailing through the lower house of Congress.
There's only one problem: The U.S. Senate, where 42 Republicans (plus "Independent" Joe Lieberman) are absolutely refusing to play ball.