Laughter from the grave and elsewhere

First, the ashes of Alexander Hamilton must be giving fits to the universe. For those of you who slept through American history, Hamilton was the last word in paleo-conservatives. Among his other ideas was that neither the unwashed, nor the states, could be trusted to handle money wisely, and therefore we needed a national bank.

Which the nation had, for close on 50 years, until the great unwashed refused to renew its charter, and we've been going to hell ever since.

Along the way, national banks became identified with (oooh!) socialism, which gave conservatives less cerebral than Hamilton (nearly all of them) one more reason to hate the idea.

So here we are in an election year, being told, more or less nakedly, that electing a black man President puts us on a rocket sled to socialism. No worries. By the inauguration, at the present rate the lame duck bush will have nationalised everything but Rush Limbaugh's mouth, thus taking the burden of the revolution off Obama's shoulders.

Undoubtedly, though, he'll fuck this up, as he has everything else.