This is also an attempt, probably quixotic, at some reconciliation or accommodation between our two warring ideologies, so often caricatured in the media and so simplistically defined that they’ve become almost theologies. President George W. Bush expressed the disconnect perfectly when, venting his displeasure that not every Congressperson or foreign ally shared his enthusiasm for invading Iraq, he warned, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Congress tagged along, when France expressed reservations about thundering into Iraq, by changing the name of the side dish served in the Capital cafeteria from French fries to Freedom Fries.

For what it’s worth, you didn’t lose the election; Senator Obama won it, with Howard Dean’s plan, impressive organization, and unprecedented fund-raising. Saddled with the dismal legacy of the self-proclaimed Great Uniter and Compassionate Conservative and unable to get it off your backs, you had no way to avoid the result of the frustration felt by over 75% of Americans who disapprove of George W. Bush’s performance as President.

President Bush during his tenure arguably has committed impeachable offenses certainly more egregious than the one for which his predecessor was impeached. Many members of Congress, notably Peter Welch of Vermont, were under great pressure from many of their constituents to begin such proceedings; but with the memory of the last effort fresh in their minds, as well as cognizant of the distraction from more important matters that it would prove, they wisely demurred. The game, as the old saying goes, wasn’t worth the candle.

The danger in a situation like the one we’re in, with half the nation euphoric and the other half disgruntled and disappointed, is that we will continue in the divisive and often mean-spirited tenor of the past seven years, negating or crippling the possibilities of bipartisan solutions to the tremendous challenges we face. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, who occasionally resemble a little too much the cat that swallowed the canary, could easily overplay their hands. President Bush, after his last election, claimed to have amassed political capital that he intended to spend. I remember thinking at the time that he was overestimating (the temptation is overwhelming to call it “misunderestimating”) the amount of capital he enjoyed. I don’t know which of us was right, but he certainly blew through it in a hurry. President-Elect Obama enjoys at the moment an incalculable amount of political capital around the world, as well as at home. We can only hope that for all our sakes he invests it wisely and, as a gracious winner should, avoids partisan posturing.

A dear old friend of mine (and best man at our wedding), Professor Emeritus Robert McCluer Calhoon of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has just in the last two weeks published his latest book of scholarship, [ital] Political Moderation in America’s First Two Centuries. [ital] That may sound to the nonacademic a bit soporific, but it’s a brilliant book. Here are a couple of excerpts from reviews: “In the midst of an era torn by conflict and locked, some say, in cultural ‘wars,’ Calhoon has illustrated the power of moderation in America’s past. No tepid ‘centrists,’ the politicians, preachers, and pedagogues who advocated moderation in unlikely places and inconvenient times followed a model of civil action that has roots in ancient Athens and Sparta.” ­ E. Brooks Holifield, Charles Howard Candler, Emory University.

“Like a master sculptor who can see human forms in blocks of marble, Robert Calhoon has identified a vein of political moderation in American history, which time and again, he argues, provided a critical element of strength and stability in the civic community....moving vignettes of dozens of Americans who rejected political polarization for conciliation and mediation...makes a powerful appeal for recognizing the importance of political moderation in American history.” ­ Elizabeth Mancke, University of Akron

Over the past couple of months I’ve received dozens of e-mails from Christian evangelicals urging me to pray that God would guide my voting, while suggesting heavily the direction in which that surely would lead. Then late on election night I watched an interview with an old African-American preacher who’d been with Martin during the marches and beatings. “Oh, how I’ve prayed for this moment!” he cried. “But I never thought I’d see it in my lifetime!”

All of which reminds us irresistibly of Abraham Lincoln, who strove to heal the most extreme polarization of the United States in its history. In his Second Inaugural, he says, “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other....The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully....With malice toward none, with charity for all,...let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”