Hurray! Something Besides Guaranteed Failure!
GIS for "vagrants a-poppin'":
One of my favorite gifts from the Bush the Younger Era is the new argument that conservatives use whenever presented with the prospect of the government doing, you know, something. The argument, in various permutations, goes something like "well, would YOU trust the federal government to do anything after Katrina? Huh?"
Generally speaking, we had eight years of a person in charge who didn't really believe in government's ability to do anything besides torture Arabs and transfer wealth upwards, with predictable results. This, of course, is then used as proof positive that government doesn't work. It's kind of like when Groucho Marx says that he wouldn't want to be in any club that would have him as a member, except with a total lack of irony in the delivery and some dead people.
I won't bore anybody with either my intense loathing of Bush or my enthusiasm for the next administration. Both of those things have been done to death, and I'll just end up angrier than usual and biting someone. But I think that of all the things about today that represent a departure from the last eight years, having a person who seems to actually want government to succeed is the best one.
We'll see how well it all works out. The mechanisms of the federal government are beyond the understanding and control of any one person. But it'll be nice to have someone who thinks it's worth it to at least try to understand some of the machinery and make it work.