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Ovid tells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in Book X of his Metamorphoses. Orpheus goes to the underworld to retrieve Eurydice but loses her for good when he disobeys the god’s injunction that he not look back at her before they emerge. I looked back at the course I took on Ovid’s epic as a college freshman 42 years later with my teacher himself in “Speaking of metamorphoses.”

In the celebratory new year’s spirit I want to take a look back at 2024 with a brief self-assessment of what I most notably got right and what I most notably got wrong.

What I got right:

• Democrats and their media adjunct parroted the idiotic White House line about “deepfakes” falsely making out President Biden’s descent into oblivion. They were lying. John and Steve and I all continued to report what we saw in front of our nose.

• A week before she announced Tim Walz as her running mate, I urged her: “Take my governor — please.” The day that Harris named Walz I expressed doubt that he could appeal to voters who didn’t already support Harris. I followed up the next week with “Tear down this Walz.” The pain of observing Walz up close over recent years did not go for naught. However, I wasn’t sure that Walz would wear out his welcome in a short campaign.

• I repeatedly called out the Star Tribune for serving as Walz’s public relations arm. I focused on the Star Tribune in “Tim Walz is returned to sender.” I took a close look at Star Tribune editorial writer Jill Burcum in action in “Of Tim and the tampons.”

• I accurately followed Tucker Carlson’s dark descent in posts such as “From glib to stupid” and, most recently, “The joy of Sachs.” Who can forget Carlson’s promotion of crank pseudo historian Darryl Cooper — “may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States”?

What I got wrong:

• I criticized Robert Hur for arriving at a predetermined conclusion in finding no prosecution of Biden to be warranted for mishandling classified documents. However, Hur correctly assessed Biden’s mental incompetence and possible juror sympathy in the event of a trial. I’m not sure about Hur’s assessment of his inability to prove the mental element of the offenses he investigated, but he operated in good faith.

• Despite Biden’s senility, I did not foresee Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. I thought the Democrats deserved Biden and that he would continue to give them what they deserved good and hard. The wish was father to the thought. I criticized Mark Halperin for reporting that Biden would withdraw from the race on the day he withdrew. Halperin got it right. I got it wrong.

• I erred in predicting that the Democrats’ relentless lawfare campaign against President Trump would take a decisive political toll. However, sometimes too much is too much. Voters saw through the lawfare productions and found a two-tier system of justice in operation.

• I did not foresee Walz’s exposure on the national stage as a compulsive liar. I did not foresee his effeminate theatrics. I did not foresee how he would display the deep meaning of “weird” and become a national laughingstock. I only thought he would be a terrible candidate.