The bailouts were ostensibly used to pay rich bankers’ bonuses, and not to stabilize the banking sector or the economy. To be fair neither party seems to be able to give up its old ways, but the one-trick-pony GOP is now holding out in the stimulus package for more tax cuts tilted toward the wealthiest among us (you know, like the bankers who got huge bonuses courtesy of you and I.)

Don’t get me wrong – I’d love a tax cut, but I think this gargantuan mess requires a somewhat more complex approach.

I’m sure Governor Paterson’s choice for Hillary’s replacement as NY Senator will be fine, but the carefully geographically calculated political fit that Kirsten Gillibrand represents should be interesting. After all, the majority of voters of NY didn’t elect a staunch gun-rights advocate to represent them in the US Senate for the current term. But that’s what they now have.

It’s already a gratifyingly welcome change to be handed a blank canvas and be able to draw on a whole new Presidency. All skepticism about presidential promises aside, yesterday’s inaugural events were truly awe inspiring. The Obama Presidency feels like a gigantic correction on the part of the American people. I think the Obama cynics underestimate the power of a genuinely gifted leader to uplift and inspire a patriotic nation. Something really big happened yesterday, and to deny or ignore it is to be nothing more than curmudgeonly at this brief moment in our history.
Now if only President Obama can also inspire the massive sea of flag-waving humanity that packed the National Mall to bear witness to his swearing in to go their neighborhood mall – After they’ve found jobs, of course – the healing can truly begin…

To be candid, I’m not terribly hot on this cartoon. My executive editor, Henry Freeman, who is always inclined to hang back and let me rip, said he was a little uncomfortable with the image of the floating plane-in-the-Hudson metaphor and offered a few suggestions, which I didn’t use.
Because the event was miraculously injury/fatality free, I didn’t think twice about whether it was in poor taste or not. I still feel that way, but I am more concerned with the fact it simply isn’t a particularly clever cartoon. In retrospect, a far better misuse of the metaphor would have been a plane floating, with saved Democrats on the wings, Obama wearing the pilot’s uniform and one of the donkeys saying “How did he pull that off?” or something like that.

No matter. Could be my last stab at Dubya. (Sniff.)