Yesterday morning, I posted this item on trueslant.com and on playboy.com (I would have put it here, but I forgot):
Sometimes nature abhors a vacuum, and sometimes it tortures it. Barack Obama was technically correct when he observed the other week that we only have one president at a time, but as we’re seeing, right now we have none. The guy who has the job has been a lame duck since his Social Security Manglement Plan failed in 2005, has been a husk since 2006, and is now showing the effectiveness on ice cube left on sidewalk thirty minutes into an August afternoon. What’s he do all day? Listen to Warren Zevon sing “I Was in the House When the House Burned Down’’? Don’t look to Congress, for as Dow 6000 and 10% unemployment loom into view, the Senate is giving a standing ovation to a convicted felon, and the House is conducting a show trial for the heads of the car companies. (True, it’s no fun to save arrogant people from their own arrogance, but the legislators need to stop preening their disgust and disdain in front of the cameras, and start thinking of the millions of workers who are going to pay the price.) Meanwhile, Obama continues to behave with a reserve appropriate for a president-elect, but one wonders if that’s enough. The wolves that present themselves at presidents’ doors tend to arrive at times and in manners of their own choosing. With sixty days of drift separating us from Inauguration Day, it just may be that the first big challenge of Obama’s presidency—possibly the defining challenge—will be to figure out a way to govern before he takes the oath of office.
Well, not six hours later, word appears that Obama will appoint Tim Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury, and on that news, the Dow shot up and finished nearly 500 points up for the day. You see? Jamie speaks, the world listens.