In response to a com­ment on an ear­lier post, I wrote,

As for west­ern civ­i­liza­tion, well, I think it will creep along just fine–God knows it’s seen worse than Sarah Palin…

Robert Stone is less san­guine. From this week’s NYT Book Review:

If, in this cam­paign, illu­sion tri­umphs over what we must believe is real­ity, we will fail as a nation. There is, after all, a point of no return. If McCain wins, his­tory is here big time, scythe, sack­cloth and all four horsemen.