Tardy Hand-Off.

• Author: Durst, Will
• Position: Off the Map - Viewpoint essay

Until Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term in 1937, newly elected Presidents weren't inaugurated until March 4. This twenty-week sorbet between election entree and the swearing-in dessert was designed to give diverse groups of white male Electoral College members time to kick-start their mules and travel to their respective state capitals to cast votes. Then that whole combustible engine thing caught on, convincing legislatures to ratify the Twentieth Amendment, which moved the transfer of power up to January 20 and ushered America safely into the twentieth century. Where many of us remain.

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In terms of theater and timing, though, the March 4 date dovetailed with the advent of spring to reinforce the sense of change that is part and parcel of that Easter renewal deal. Season of rebirth. Out with the old, in with the new. Bunnies and eggs and fertility and blooming and yellow marshmallows and resurrection and abundance, which played extremely well in an era where the darkness was mostly broken by pieces of charred meat glistening in reflected firelight.

But this time around, I think if we had had to wait until March 4 for a transition from "this one" to "that one" each and every one of us would have gone crazier than a pack of raccoons bouncing around in zero gravity on Ecstasy laced with strychnine. The seventy-seven days between November 4, 2008, and January 20, 2009, was already more frustrating than watching According to Jim dubbed in Albanian for two eternities.

I bet ten bucks that even #43 regrets the hand-off didn't go down earlier. Like November 5th. Every member from his Administration looked anxious to slink off into the mists of memory, but none so badly as GWB. After dodging that pair of Baghdad shoes, he wore this resigned "oh, don't...