All that was missing Monday was a gilded sedan chair for Barack Obama and a rocking chair for George Bush.
The contrast in images amid the greatest economic crisis of our generation was stark. President Obama, ah, President-elect Obama, was surrounded by his quartet of top economic advisers and dozens of media in Chicago, while President Bush was on the steps of the Treasury Building, with Henry Paulson both at his back and inadvertently exuding the air of a sincere gym teacher improbably promoted to principal.
The place to be is Chicago with Obama, with the first hints of winter and snow fittingly in the air amid the national anxiety. For sure, it reflects the wickedly short attention spans of us folks in the media; of our professional ambitions, personal futures, TV appearances and maybe even speaking fees now tied to the new star. By contrast, the C-SPAN airings of White House briefings back in D.C. show us journalists whose melancholy air hints at their having been relegated to maximum security isolation in the dankest of state prisons.
But what's playing out also reflects a sense that a drama to which we're spectators has, without any mention in the Playbill, moved on to the next act without finishing the last one. The intermission on which we'd planned also seems to have vanished.
For sure, there is a lack both of fairness and sense of history at play. A lot of smart folks are working overtime all over Washington dealing with awful financial complexity and a string of unexpected events and unintended consequences. The markets going south and the latest emergency transfusion, this into the veins of Citigroup, bedevil many, not just those laboring at the White House, Treasury, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the FDIC and other outposts now known to far more Americans fretting over their economic present and future.
And there seems little recognition that the final scenes of presidencies do bring significant moments and actions. Can we forget the Bush-like poll numbers of Jimmy Carter in 1980 after being vanquished by Ronald Reagan? But Carter oversaw the passage and signing of significant environmental measures passed and, of course, bargained a deal leading to the end of the Iranian hostage debacle.
There are other examples but, so far, scant sense that President Bush is doing much beyond playing out the string. Perhaps it's the utter lack of a sense of urgency in his every appearance, in his every step. Perhaps it's his moral certitude -- simultaneously his strength and his weakness. He'll get it right because, well, the guy upstairs is on his side.
Improbably, his appearance on the steps of the Treasury again reinforced a sense of a sports coach sitting on a lead. It's as if he's playing defense, not wanting to make any more mistakes in the closing minutes, to hold a lead which, if truth be told, he doesn't even have. Maybe he feels burned and just doesn't want to send more billions into the black hole of an AIG or another imploding financial giant. Maybe he just doesn't want to exit on Jan. 20 looking utterly inept.
Meanwhile, Team Obama is walking its own tightrope. It wants to give every suggestion of being ready to take action but, at the same time, not to look precipitous. After all, they're not actually in charge yet, regardless of those pundits who find this wait frustrating and opine about changing the Constitution.
For sure, when they do, the bloom may come off the rose more quickly than we imagine. These problems may not be given to any obvious remedy, no matter how many sharp alums of Harvard or Goldman Sachs are gathered together in the West Wing
For now, however, the political center of gravity seems to have shifted to the chilly Heartland. And, knock on wood, the guy who might well have been paraded before us in a sedan chair Monday, his acolytes holding him aloft, at least seems to know what he's doing.
Right now it has the authority to make Congress listen, and exibit some leadership.
As has been stated previously, regulation (except when it benefited corporate America) was considered unAmerican. The GOP B.S. machine worked overtime to convince many Americans to vote AGAINST their self interests and to convince us that government involment in healthcare, education (though NO Child Left Behind is a disaster) and oversight of technology and financial products was socialism or communism.
I sure hope we've learned out lesson, though Boehner the Complianer still rants the old rehtoric. The good news his audience grows smaller and smaller.
As history will show ,unrestrained capitalism produced more devastating results on real people than did the two economic philosophies the GOP so feared.
In conclusion I love JFK, FDR, ...American wisdom (these days!), NEW YORK ... our little baby from London..and good night.
AMERICA BELIEVE IN PRESIDENT OBAMA AND WISH HIM THE WISDOM HE HAS SHOWN HITHERTOO
And Michelle and the babies!
other than as an irony to embarrass the father.
I can on the other hand imagine some future Shakespeare wringing hands penning some lament.
I don't need you to tell me about how quickly the bloom will be coming off the rose. I've been beat up for 8 straight years and I need me some Obama time.
One example of this mindset is this latest boondoggle with Cap and Trade..They are giving control to private enterprise where it is going to become a stock trading on Wallstreet and we know what that means..
The cost of Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals are bankrupting what little manufacturing we have left besides pushing the ordinary citizen into untenable situations..
The Government is going to have a difficult time setting things straight with the country having this hatred for socalled Socialism..They cant call it Socialist because the country doesent understand it so I guess they will call it government regulation ..
Whatever they call it we sure need it and I say bring it on..
(sorry, you will have to copy and paste all of this link)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/1,7371,519655,00.html
We will remember always, this way
All the while, Americans are asking: "Are we there yet?"
Already those of us outside the USA are beginning to witness a metamorphosis so profound and wonderful it is just hard to imagine that his victory is still only days old.
An incipient but very telling example of this is demonstrated in this piece posted today in the UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2008/nov/24/alistair-darling-barack-obama-jonathan-freedland
In addition, seismically and uncharacteristically, the comment section Guardian rejoices as I do, the final separation of woolly purple politics and accurately signals the need for a new purpose for the progressive left.
This incoming administration will not be without scandal, it's a given, it's how the new Pres deals with these personnel issues that will matter.
Bush is doing nada.
The economy is tanking and heading towards a depression very fast and yet he is doing nothing. He also is unwilling to let go of a failed ideology where he and the rest of the brain dead conservatives still believe in no regulation at all, free trade and tax cuts for the wealthy. And only help out corporations because if you lift a finger to help out the people it will be the end of democracy as we know it and we will become a communist country.