Conservatives must avoid the siren song of schism, or all is lost.

Why, listening to Obama talk about his economic triumphs over the last three years might make you want to move to the country he was describing. Too bad that country exists primarily in his own head.

Obama's victory in November 2008 was a historic political accomplishment.

Romney is a good, intelligent, extraordinarily generous man who put on a great fight. But he didn't understand the country or the people he sought to lead, and that is why he lost.

When Obama was inaugurated, he and his team had an insight - though whether the insight was conscious or not I don't know. But it was this: The TARP $700 billion price tag was a new kind of model.

Obama is talking to voters as though he is their boss, or their principal, or their father. He is not any of those things. He is their employee. And employers don't like it when their employees yell at them - even if their employees have it right.

Memories of the last nine years have turned Ground Zero from a site of horror, to a reminder of grief, to an occasion for ludicrous artistic posturing - and now to something very close to parody.