Lame Duck Days: Hope Over Experience

Hope is strong early in every new President’s first term. It is a time of great expectations. This is the triumph of hope over experience.

Before the hoped-for day of deliverance on January 20 at high noon, there is a two-month transition period. The dark night of the incumbent Administration is expected to recede in the brightness of a new dawn. This calls forth exuberant editorials by members of the victors’ party. Consider this forecast by Thomas Kostigan, who writes the “Ethics Monitor” on Market Watch.

We know that we must protect our planet to protect ourselves and our future. We know that politicians will blatantly lie and need more accountability. We know that we have a strong say in how our country is run and that, yes, we can vote for change. We know that despite tough times we can come together and celebrate gold medals. We know that we can experience happiness, that no matter how ugly and uncomfortable and downright bad it gets, that we can rise. We will. And that is why it is the best of times, because the worst of times is behind us. There is hope.

In just a few weeks the emblem of that hope, President-elect Barack Obama, will take office. He said: “Our destiny is inextricably linked … together our dreams can be one. ‘We cannot walk alone,’ the preacher cried. ‘And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.’ America, we cannot turn back … not with so much work to be done; not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild, and farms to save; not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment … we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise, that American promise, and in the words of scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.”

Amen.

To hope. To a happy new year. It can be one. It will be one. The tide has turned. Hope heralded can turn true.

I would like to think that this is satire. I am not so sure. But even if it is, its general assessment is not being challenged by the world of liberal punditry.

The dawning of this new day will be money in the bank for Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Let us hope, for their sake at least, that the FDIC will do its job over the next four years.

Before that dawn arrives, we can all enjoy a departing lame duck. Just as the chickens are coming home to roost, the lame duck waddles off.

This comparatively rare event is one of the finest traditions of American political history. We should savor every moment.

I call it “reality on parade.”

A PARADE OF LAME DUCKS

George W. Bush is the most memorable lame duck President in 75 years. The last lame duck President as lame as Bush was Herbert Hoover.

What is a lame duck President?   Continue reading . . .