You can be forgiven for feeling good.

If you don’t look at the polls (or The New York Times' best-seller list), there’s a lot to feel good about.

Bill’s ticker’s on the mend; even Karl Rove thinks Zell Miller was a bad idea; Iraq’s not getting any better; the economy remains a mess; Messrs. Carville and Begala have been enlisted to kibitz; and John Kerry finally- finally -is fighting back.

So God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.

Just kidding, of course.

There’s still those polls (Dubya 12 points ahead in Time's, 11 in Newsweek's), still that Times best-seller list-with Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry the No. 1 book in the land.

Pretending, though, sure beats sitting shiva, which is what Democratic dinner parties have become the last few weeks.

The suddenness of black crepe hanging boggles. Seems only yesterday the Kerry campaign’s biggest worry was John Edwards’ red-headed 4-year-old stealing the photo op. Now, betcha can’t remember the kid’s name. (Save you the Google: It’s Jack.)

All that’s spilt milk-enough to match the annual output of Wisconsin, where (just to show you how the world has turned upside down) an L.A. Times poll now has George W. Bush leading in the birthplace of Progressivism.

Blame there is aplenty. But since the press (which deserves a nice hunk for so cheerfully submitting to gonad-snipping) has done such a good job apportioning it to others—Mr. Kerry most of all—your correspondent’s only contribution to gloom this week will be a single iteration of the obvious: Now that Rove & Partners have found a bat with demonstrated home-run power, they’ll be hitting John Kerry over the head with it each and every one of the 50 or so days till the election.

And what’s the Louisville Slugger? Vietnam. Not what John Kerry allegedly didn’t do over there (that Swiftee boat has sunk at last), but what he incontestably did do when he came back, w...