no we can't ii

Reading The Corner is a real pleasure at the moment, for obvious reasons. Two things made me laugh today. One unintentional; the other a genuinely good joke. Unintentional first - here's John Derbyshire, arguing against optimism:

(H)owever you weigh (our nation's problems), or rank them relative to each other, it's awfully hard to argue that any of them were caused by excessive pessimism."Yes, we can!" is the other party's slogan. We don't need any more of that spirit than we currently have.

Here's Charles Krauthammer, with a good gag:

(S)o now we have the historical procession: the New Deal, the Square Deal, and the "Big F**n Deal."