The calm before the storm

Two weeks into the new year and it feels like all the political news of the day could be summed up by Carly Simon's Anticipation.

We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway,
And I wonder if I'm really with you now
Or just chasin' after some finer day

Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'

About all we really know right now is that things are likely to heat up...real soon. Over the next month and a half, we anticipate:

1. VP Biden's gun task force recommendations
2. Hearings on the President's Cabinet appointments (with more nominations likely coming)
3. The inauguration of President Barack Obama
4. The beginning of work on immigration reform
5. President Obama's State of the Union Speech
6. Hitting the debt ceiling
7. The delayed deadline for implementation of the sequester spending cuts 

That's quite a list for a month and a half. And yet today...we're just waiting. 

I don't suspect that's how things feel in the White House right now. Things are probably in overdrive there these days getting ready for all of this. 

But for media reporting and commenting, there is a kind of nervous energy that results in stupid stuff from some quarters - like getting all riled up about the diversity of the President's Cabinet or raging about what the President might (or might not) propose on entitlements (warning: poutrage link) or going off on crazy tangents about magic coins. 

I want to acknowledge the nervous energy. I feel it too. But what I'm not going to do is chase after something to freak out about. That is just a way to avoid the perfectly sane feeling of anticipation...