An Uncivil War

Matthew Continetti of the Daily Standard wonders that the left has decided that in the wake of Bush's victory, America is on the brink of civil war. Are they nuts? Why yes, they are nuts. Seems the DEMs are all bent out of shape on this. What if they gave a civil war and nobody came? At least one side, anyway.//JW sends

"Not since the Civil War," Columbia University professor and noted art critic Simon Schama wrote in the Manchester Guardian on Sunday, "has the fault line between [America's] two halves been so glaringly clear, nor the chasm between its two cultures so starkly unbridgeable."

Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz agrees. He told Dean Murphy in Sunday's New York Times that there are only "two instances in history" when the American electorate has been so divided. "They are kind of scary examples," Wilentz said. "One is 1860, and we know what happened after that one . . ." (Wilentz's second example was the 1896 election, which did not, in case you were wondering, result in secession.)

It's not just noted liberal academics who believe we're about to reenact the Civil War. It's newspaper writers and television pundits. It's Hollywood actors, like Mandy Patinkin: "We were driving around early this morning and saying to each other in the car, I always wondered what it was like, the mentality during the Civil War in America," Patinkin told CTV this week. "Now I know. It's just completely divided."