In the Year Two Thousand . . . and Eight

Let's take a step back from Hillary's ridiculous reference to 1968 and Olbermann's angry response, and take ourselves back to a different time, not one of assassination and turmoil but a time when things seemed somewhat more promising, all the way back to . . . 1994.

Newt was leading his revolution against Clinton, whose wife, Hillary, was mired in a mess of a health care plan and a swath of controversies and investigations.

And across the dial, the baseball season was cut short by a strike, leaving the Montreal Expos with the best record, and sportscaster Keith Olbermann took it upon himself to make fun of de facto commissioner Bud Selig and players' union representative Donald Fehr in his trademark not-so-serious-but-still-a-little-serious deadpan fashion as an anchor on Sportscenter (which was still watchable).

Now look where we are. Isn't our reality today just a malaria fever dream of the average guy from 1994?