A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND.

Victor Davis Maximus Super Hanson tells us there were men in those days, by God! Not like the lily-livers we have now! And the only way to pay them proper tribute is in third-rate press-agent prose:

The greatest generals are tragic heroes. Take again George S. Patton — the man who was needed to instill a 19th-century martial audacity in an untrained army of conscripts reliant on superior logistics and material supply. Yet Patton was singularly inept in adjusting to the necessary politics of an allied effort, and indeed to the cultural parameters of modernism itself — thus his crackpot talk of reincarnation and manly essence.

Driven mad, nobly mad, by the tempora and the mores -- victim of the modern age, poor poor General!

To cut as much of the bullshit as is possible while still addressing the subject, Maximus has learned a few things about John Ford (from the sound of it, almost certainly from David Brooks), and sees a link to antique heroes, and their need to be obliterated in their agon for the good of all -- something Maximus would certainly consider socialistic if cowboys and Romans weren't so dead butch. Maximus says we need such a man now to save America -- from itself!

Could there be a tragic hero in the 21st century? Might a candidate reform the tax code, balance the budget, recalibrate entitlements, return the U.S. to a meritocratic and self-reliant society, and understand that he had to be hated for doing what might save us? “I shall end agricultural subsidies entirely and cut Food Stamps back to 2009 levels,” a heroic president might thunder as he welcomes a single term as the price for that defiance.

Maximus is catching on, slightly; he knows we all hate him and his fellow wingnuts. And while at first glance it might seem as if he's forgetting that you have to be elected before you can become our hated leader, I give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume he knows his preferred candidate will either steal the election or lie his way in.

But what man is fit for the laurel?

Mitch Daniels has the standoffishness...

Quit laughing! Let him finish!

...and a sense that what has to be done would be near politically intolerable for the most of the public. But does he have the spirit, over familial objections, to turn the buckboard around back to Hadleyville before High Noon?

Well, considering how quickly he crapped out back in 2012, when with the support of Maximus Super he could have saved us from the blackamoor tyrant Obama, I'd say Daniels prefers a heavily air-conditioned McMansion to any buckboard, especially one headed into battle.

Chris Christie is the antithesis of the current metrosexual president, as unconcerned with his appearance as Obama is prissy and compulsive in his manners and grooming. 

What's Latin for "faggot"?

But while Christie’s bluster shows signs of tragic unconcern, is it matched by a spiritual unconcern for what the presidency might do to him if he were to try to save the country?

Depends. Might the presidency try to make him eat a salad?

Perhaps things must become even worse to cause a tragic hero to emerge — for someone to speak the truth, offend the majority, and, when the successful effort is over, to lose.

Two thoughts: 1.) Sarah Palin isn't going to run, Maximus. When the Republic goes down in flames, she'll be running a theme park called Triggworld or some shit, and counting every penny from the moose-ear cap concession. 2.) I hate to call anyone else a drama queen, but this dream of non-consensually forcing Liberty onto America and then dying nobly downstage may be something you should share with your shrink, not yell out the windows. Some of your comrades might want to win an election someday.