The More Things Change
Every political pundit and news organization is putting together its list of top stories of the 2000s.* I will spare you my diatribe of how the decade doesn’t really end until next year and offer some perspective on events as well.
I think I can honestly say we close out the decade the way started, divided and a little nervous. Think about it. The first two big events of the year 2000 were the Y2K bug and the Presidential election which put George W. Bush into office, despite losing the popular vote.
We united after 9-11, but things went south again right after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As Iraq deteriorated we went back to divided government in 2006 and in 2008, the financial meltdown began.
We elected the first African-American President (although there are still some crazies who don’t think he’s a citizen, funny how that happens when the black guy shows up). But by the end of the year, his approval ratings hovered about 50-percent, luckily that is based more on performance than pigmentation.
There was some things that brought us together, I call them Facebook and Twitter. We saw an explosion of reality television. Michael Jackson died and so did Tiger Woods’ clean cut image.
I think what’s most symbolic about the 2000s is that unlike the 70s, 80s and 90s we could never agree on what exactly to call the first decade of the 21st century.
I like to think of them as over.
*I’ll be putting up my top 10 lists over the course of week. It’s no fun to simply curse the bandwagon. You have to drive it every once in a while.
