"There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.” Republicans and conservatives have recently had reason to appreciate the truth of Winston Churchill’s statement. President Obama and the Democratic Congress had a real shot at transforming American politics and public policy into European-style social democracy. When Obama spoke to Congress a year ago, on February 24, 2009, it certainly seemed he would have a chance to succeed. 

Life doesn’t simply imitate art. There are important differences between the Scott Brown story and Jefferson Smith’s. And the differences make Brown’s actual achievement more impressive than Smith’s fictitious one. For example, Smith (Jimmy Stewart) was appointed to his seat in the Senate. Scott Brown won his in an upset electoral victory. And at the climactic moment in the film, Smith collapses in a faint, but his cause is saved by a fellow senator, Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), who has had sudden pangs of conscience.