AS WASHINGTON D.C. POILITICOS BEGIN CHRISTMAS VACATION CAN THE POST ELECTION 111TH CONGRESS' CLOSING SESSION BE CALLED, "LAMEDUCK" ?..........

Seven weeks ago, days after the midterm Elections President Barack Obama was thought to be so upended politically, that some were saying he was a lameduck and likely, a one term President.  Little prospect of much productive being achieved by the lameduck 111th Congress was thought to be, all but certain.  Then, in the past three weeks, a contentious and controversial, Bush era Tax Cuts extension reached between The White House and the Senate Republicans, which disgruntled Congressional Democrats were caused to accept, changed the legislative landscape in these waning days of the Congressional session before the Christmas holidays.  An affirmative vote abolishing the seventreen year old, Don't Ask, Don't Tell Law, regarding homosexuals openly serving in the U.S. military, was next successfully achieved this past weekend after being logjammed in the Congress for nearly two years.  A second legislative victory for the Obama White House from the so called, lameduck Congress.  And then yesterday, with the unexpected support of 13 Senate Republicans, the newest START Treaty between the United States and Russia, signed by the two Presidents last April, ande held up by GOP Senators opposed to it fror the past eight months, was passed by the Senate, a third major legislative success in the past two weeks.  Only the Dream Act, an immigration bill, was not voted on affirmatively.  This fast change in productive, bi-partisan, governing shows the fluidity of American politics and affirms the power of compromise, as both an art and a science in the American political process.  A hopeful sign, in a sea of vitriol and partisanship, as we head into divided government in two weeks, for the next two years.  Can a spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation prevail in the new 112th Congress, and the second two years of POresident Obama's first term, while the presidential campaign for 2012 plays out ?  Or will the temptation to promote opposition and girdlock,and the threadbare Washington penchant for political partisanship and calculation, resume, achieving little but division and obstruction for the politicians and the people ?..........Fr.  Troy