EDITORIAL: Obama, Congress and the next four years   ELECTIONS
are supposed to be clarifying events.  In the wake of the recent
voting, however, many commentators have remarked on the seeming
stasis of American politics: Congress and the presidency will
remain just as they were -- a Democratic president, a
Democratic-controlled Senate, and a Republican-controlled House.
Four more years, indeed, they say -- of gridlock.  Perhaps not.
After four years of determined GOP obstructionism in Congress
and efforts by many conservatives to mythologize Barack Obama as
a foreigner, a Muslim, a racist, a socialist and an angry anti-
colonialist, perhaps it's now time for them to recognize his
presidency not as a one-off anomaly, but as a legitimate product
of the presidential electoral system.  Such recognition will be
a stretch. To this point, the conservative echo machine of Fox
News, talk radio, books and even a movie has been nothing if not
self-deluding.  During Obama's first term, conservatives worked
themselves in