Crazy '08: The previous year leaves eight interesting lessons

Here are eight lessons from 2008:

Lesson 1 — Media recession: In an effort to help their Chosen One win the White House, newspapers like the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times began talking up recession and even depression several quarters before they actually brought one on. They managed to sow panic among their business customers and reaped declining advertising revenues as a consequence. Their blatant Obama bias turned off readers, and circulation fell anywhere from 3.2 percent to 5.1 percent during the election season. Meanwhile, newspapers like the Deseret News, Wall Street Journal, The Times of Trenton and Wisconsin State Journal stuck to fundamental, accurate and objective reporting and saw circulation increase.

Lesson 2 — Who let the bears out? Who! Who! When you stare a bear in the eye and say, "I was able to get a sense of his soul. I found him to be very straightforward and truthful . . ." as George W. Bush did, you'd better not break eye contact or go on an Olympic vacation. That great Russian bear, Vladimir Putin, might just take the occasion to bite you on the butt by invading Georgia. Daniel Webster opined that the American people loved President Andrew Jackson because "[he] is an honest and upright man. He does what he thinks is right and does it with all his might." Bush has a vacation attachment problem. It was the Olympic vacation that got us in trouble in Georgia and the reticence to cut his Texas vacation short that got him in trouble with Katrina. I hate using the "L" word, but I really do think Bush was a bit lazy.

Lesson 3 — Body Worlds: If you begin the Olympic year protesting in Tiananmen Square you may just finish it as an art object at The Leonardo in Salt Lake City.

Lesson 4 — Presidential election year: In presidential politics, the more things are promised to change the more they remain the same. You'd better have a pretty clean record if you're going to challenge the press and the American people to "catch me if you can." That's the lesson Gary Hart learned from Donna Rice. But when you've gotten rich fooling Americans, a dozen at a time, with junk science, as John Edwards did, it's understandable that he was so full of himself that he thought he could "fool all of the people all of the time."

At this point let's give Obama the benefit of the doubt. After all, his success will be our success.