The New Jerry Ford Pooper-Scooper Era

I thought all the pageantry over Jerry Ford's funeral was creepy. However, Jerry Ford did blaze a trail that the next two or three administrations are going to have to walk over the next years. Just as Jerry Ford had to clean up from Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, succeeding administrations stretching out who knows how long are going to have to clean up the mess created by George Bush and his Iraq War. Getting the troops out of Iraq, closing Guantanamo, shutting down the rendition system, dismantling the data mining operation, and dealing with all the legal recriminations from the Iraq War--the next administration is going to have to pick its way through all these minefields with the expectation that it will be handing off some of the problems to the next administration after that. Succeeding administrations are also going to have work out the health care mess, straighten out the budget, and handle what's likely to be a long list of scandals left over from the era of right-wing government. That's not to mention dealing with the next economic downturn.

American government will be an exercise in political pooper-scooping for some time to come--the New Jerry Ford era.