From a football and movie filled New Year's Day, to a Husker football game where our favorite team may have actually won something better than a trophy, to a major political event in a neighboring state, to our President setting the tone for work in Washington, DC this year, it was anything but a short week for us. If the first week of 2012 is supposed to set the tone for the rest of the year, we hope that everyone is ready for the most intense twelve months in recent memory.
To begin the week, our favorite college football team lost their bowl game this year. Of course, we would have preferred a different outcome. However, after talking with some of our media contacts around the country, we think the Husker football team may have earned something more than a trophy this week.
More than once this past week, the topic of the bowl game, the on-field fight, and the post game behavior of the opposing team came up in conversations with our colleagues. Each time, the person we were speaking with would give their take on the game and note how classless South Carolina was in letting their ejected player become the game's MVP. Then, they would remark on how classy Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini was in speaking about the Gamecocks (compared to how Gamecocks fans and players were acting), and how stern Pelini was with disciplining his own player. Nearly everyone we talked to used words like "classy," respectful," and "sportsmanship" when privately describing the performance of our favorite college football team in that tough moment – a moment that made us proud of being Nebraskans.
We were proud of our friends in Iowa too, even our Republican friends, this week. If anything, the Iowa GOP Caucus this year still proved two of our favorite axioms about American government – that those who show up and participate can make a difference, and that almost anything is possible.
We couldn't have been more proud of President Obama this week either, for following through with actions on what some thought was merely a campaign catch phrase for 2012. "We can't wait," is what the President has been saying, and this week, he followed through on that, appointing the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray, along with three new members of the National Labor Relations Board.
The facts are clear: as an arm of the government, whether or not a policeman or military service member agrees with the rules and laws they have a sworn duty to uphold and enforce, they do their duties, fulfill their roles, and keep the system moving.
Sadly, many Congressional Republicans have, for far too long, acted like they were better than our servicemembers and police personnel, doing the DC equivalent of crossing their arms and stamping their feet, and impeding ALL progress, simply because they didn't want to enforce the law that created the CFPB - a law that some of them supported.
That the President finally treated the obstructionist Congressional Republicans like the petulant children they've been imitating has been something a long, long time in coming. We can only hope that the GOP members of Congress now decide to act like grownups the rest of the year - though we're not willing to hold our breath they will do so.
The best news from this week? The jobs numbers are up in the U.S., while the jobless numbers are down substantially, and unemployment has continued it's decline, a trend we vigorously hope continues throughout the rest of this year.
As you can see, even while we felt like we were being pulled in all directions this week, there were still some moments that make us think that 2012 may actually end up being a very positive year. It won't be easy - but as we've said for years, anything worth getting is worth working for. Some things are especially worth reaching for.
In the spirit of one of our more well-known media colleagues, congratulations on getting through another week of this stuff.
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