By DAN K. THOMASSON, Scripps Howard News Service

It is obvious that tens of millions of Americans thought naively that Barack Obama's election would usher in a new era of civility and bipartisanship, a chance for a divided nation to come together in a spirit of political cooperation to deal with the nation's pressing needs. They now know better.

Harry Truman is credited with saying it first and of putting it on his desk in the Oval Office. But it hasn't been heard around here for some time. In fact, "the buck stops here," has all but disappeared from presidential usage, replaced by "I can't think of any (mistakes) at the moment."

It most likely won't happen, but the majority Senate Democrats should vote down the confirmation of their former leader, Thomas Daschle, as Health and Human Services secretary because of his income tax "oversights." They probably should not have approved Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary for his.

In the midst of our daily news diet of economic disaster heaped on economic disaster comes a story that rivals anything one has read about all those venal bankers and financial manipulators who have made our lives miserable. The Army, it seems, has decided to cut off the stipend of two-dozen or so Alaskans who served as unpaid militia during World War II.

Not terribly long ago all that was wrong with Wall Street was embodied in the character Gordon Gekko as portrayed by actor Michael Douglas in the smash hit movie, "Wall Street."

Now the hard part begins.
Following the promise must be the delivery and that will be daunting.

Of all the things President Obama pledges to do, probably the most difficult to achieve will be reforming the nation's runaway entitlement programs -- Social Security and Medicare -- guarded as they are by a legion of older people that's about to get even larger and less tractable.

It isn't unusual for incoming presidents to surround themselves with persons from their home states. Lyndon Johnson studded his administration with Texans as did the Bushes and Jimmy Carter leaned on Georgians in selecting his White House staff.

Has the Secret Service gone too far?
It's a question being asked with increasing frequency in these days before the inauguration of Barack Obama by tens of thousands of commuters who must make the daily trek from the Virginia or Maryland suburbs to jobs from Capitol Hill to the White House, the corridor that is the heart of the Federal bureaucracy.

In the rarefied air of this most ancient of state capitals where Anglo and Hispanic cultures mix to provide a rich political broth, Bill Richardson has always been a curious phenomenon even for the "Land of Enchantment" -- an adept manipulator who has managed to keep one foot in the statehouse and the other on the national scene.