You Say Good Bye, I Say Hello

Miracle on the Hudson a prelude to Miracle on the Potomac

One of the few drawbacks of working for a weekly, as opposed to a daily or a Web site, is that deadlines are typically a couple of days before the paper actually hits the streets. And in that span, particularly if you’re ruminating on topical political subjects, the situation could have changed dramatically. This week the political landscape will not only have changed but will have become unrecognizable from that of just a few short days ago.

Of course, that’s a tradeoff I’ll take eight days a week if it means bidding good riddance to the outgoing “administration” and ushering in a ray of hope in its successor.

As President Obama sets about removing the detritus from eight Godforsaken years of criminality, corruption, cronyism and ideologically driven incompetence, it is tempting to recast Gerald Ford’s (only) famous quote, “Our long national nightmare is over” in light of a New Day in America. But, in light of the desperate straits Bush the Butcher has left us in, one of Yogi’s many famous quotes, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” may be more appropriate.

Don’t think for a moment that I don’t have the utmost faith in President Obama, because I do. I am as grateful that he is the man replacing Duh as I am that Duh is being replaced. We are going to need a miracle to extricate ourselves from the disaster that will forever be known as the Bush legacy — regardless of whatever delusions he may have in claiming a “solid record” — but Obama may be just the miracle-worker who can pull it off. But just because we’ve quit digging doesn’t mean that we’re still not in a deep, deep hole. The Bush cabal laid down 40 miles of bad road and we’ve still got 39 to go before finding the freeway toward peace and prosperity. Premier Bushcheneyrove allowed the ship of state to drift so far from shore that it will take not only an enlightened captain but a nation full of yeomen to find the promised land.

But, I truly believe, there is a beacon out there somewhere. It’s been a tough and traumatic eight years, but I have not allowed Bush to rob me of my last spark of idealism. And now that he is being removed from the forefront of the public consciousness, my hope is that that spark can be rekindled and burn brightly from here on out.

In a bizarre juxtaposition of events, the day of the Miracle on the Hudson was also the day Bush gave his farewell address. In the most poetic irony imaginable, while the nation was transfixed on a disaster averted, a heroic situation in which everything went right, playing out its final chapter was a disaster actualized, a craven situation in which everything went wrong. One a miracle, the other a catastrophe.

Then, last Saturday evening Larry King had James Taylor and John Legend on his show, prior to their performance at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the greatest assemblage of musical talent ever on one stage (funny, I didn’t see Hank Jr. there). He asked Chapel Hill-native Taylor what Obama’s election meant to him, and he replied that it felt like we could now finally start the millennium, that these last eight years have been an aberration, a limbo-like existence.

While I share that view, it was impossible not to sit there and come up with my own analogy. It occurred to me that the nation has been given a second chance, a new life, a rebirth. I’m going to get very personal here, but it was like I felt when I quit drinking. Just as I grabbed a life raft that was tossed to me by some folks who cared more for me than I cared for myself, so must the country climb aboard. But we can’t simply hang on, we’ve got to bail as hard as we can, because, brothers and sisters, this raft is taking on water. To get this craft seaworthy again, collectively, we’ve got some work to do; a moral inventory to take, a thorough housecleaning, some amends to make to the world.

As I ponder the cosmic scheme of things, I can’t help but wonder if maybe there is a reason for this seeming aberration, this eight-year bad dream, after all. Is it possible that Bush — and only Bush — could have created the conditions that made it possible to elect as unlikely a person as Barack Obama? An African-American man with a Middle Eastern middle name with minuscule experience and a liberal voting record? Hollywood wouldn’t touch this, right?

Maybe that will be Bush’s legacy, that he made such a mess of things that America was able to become teachable, to become willing to open its collective mind and heart to the polar opposite of a deeply flawed human being and his failed ideology.
If miracles happen to those who believe in them, I’m coming to believe.

Ogi may be reached at ogiman100@yahoo.com and seen on “Triad Today” hosted by Jim Longworth on ABC 45 at 6:30 a.m. Fridays and on WMYV 48 at 10 p.m. Sundays.