Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived, or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? - Hunter S. Thompson

When I went into the clinic last April 30, George Bush was about 50 points ahead of his closest Democratic opponent in next year's Presidential Election. When I finally escaped from the horrible place, less than three weeks later, Bush's job-approval ratings had been cut in half — and even down into single digits, in some states — and the Republican Party was panicked and on the run. It was a staggering reversal in a very short time, even shorter than it took for his equally crooked father to drop from 93 percent approval, down to as low as 43 percent and even 41 percent in the last doomed days of the first doomed Bush Administration. After that, he was Bill Clinton's punching bag.

You can't miss what you never had.

We have bigger things to brood on and enormous reasons for wallowing in terminal craziness until we finally hit bottom.