While Barack Obama introduced the first members of his economic team, a wailing noise could be heard somewhere in the background.

As Barack Obama makes his way through the transition to power, he is learning the steps of an old dance. Having promised change, he now surrounds himself with experience. Having poured scorn not only on the Bush administration but at times on the Clinton administration as well, he now welcomes those who served his Democratic predecessor, including the former first lady who ran against him.

While the ultimate occupants of three United States Senate seats are yet to be determined in Alaska, Georgia and Minnesota, chances seem small that Democrats will increase their new majority to 60 seats -- the supermajority that ensures against a successful filibuster. So the same Republicans who once complained about the use of that legislative weapon by the opposition now brandish it in warning to President-elect Barack Obama.

When George W. Bush looks back someday on the wreckage of the past eight years, even he may someday realize that he missed his most important political opportunity in the months after 9/11. Despite his lackluster performance on that day, Americans stood with him as the symbol of the nation, displaying a steadfast and sober unity we had not felt for decades.

Writing a post-mortem for John McCain's presidential candidacy would be premature. But if and when that moment comes next week, toxic staff infection will be listed as a primary cause of death.

Wherever John McCain appears on the stump in these waning days of the presidential campaign, he is always accompanied by his imaginary friend "Joe the Plumber," but it is the specter of Karl Marx that lurks just offstage.

For anyone who followed the story of how and why Sarah Palin fired her state's public safety commissioner, last week's release of a legislative investigation that found she had violated state ethics statutes was anticlimactic. After all, everyone knows that she and her husband, Todd, tried to push Walt Monegan, then Alaska's public safety commissioner, to fire a state trooper named Mike Wooten, who was involved in a bitter divorce from Ms. Palin's sister -- and that after Mr. Monegan refused, he lost his job.

Nothing in the presidential campaign so far has been as instructive as its swift descent into the politics of personal destruction. Although voters have probably heard little lately that they did not already know about Sen. Barack Obama, they have learned something very important about Sen. John McCain.

The initial failure to pass bailout legislation reflected a political system as bereft of confidence as the financial markets. President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had no credibility to match the arrogance of their initial demand for absolute power in distributing $700 billion of public assistance (the old synonym for welfare).

Debate over how to resolve the nation's financial emergency is taking a salutary direction for the moment, as politicians of both parties refuse to be herded by the Bush White House into a ridiculous $700-billion swindle.