Despite the joy, a new CNN poll has exposed a scared, anxious public still worried about which direction this ship of state is headed, a bit concerned the course might be plotted toward an ill-fated collision.

After an hour’s delay, the RMS Titanic departed Queenstown, Ireland, about 1:30 in the afternoon, April 11, 1912, bound for New York.
The direction of the fabled ship, of course, led directly into an unfortunate iceberg-encounter in the cold-dead of night.

The big difference between right now and the Titanic disaster is perspective.
Churning through the cold Atlantic, the big ship’s 2,240 passengers and crew were comforted by the cutting-edge of technology — passengers in first class, biggies like JJ Astor and “Molly Brown, down to third class, in steerage, slept the sleep of the innocent, the naive, safe in the cocoon of modern engineering. (Illustration of Titanic’s route found here).

Nowadays, the passengers and crew are all on deck, watching, peering, faces anxious, stomachs facing the first strains of panic.
From CNN‘s poll:

• Only 16 percent of those questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say things are going well in the country today. That’s an all-time low. Eighty-three percent say things are going badly, which is an all-time high.
  …
  “The challenge Obama faces has never been greater.
  No president has ever come to office during a time when the public’s mood has been this low. In the 34 years that this question has been asked, the number who say things are going well has never fallen below 20 percent,” said Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director.
  …
  The all-time low on the public’s mood may have something to do with the poll’s finding that President Bush is the most unpopular president since approval ratings were first sought more than six decades ago. Seventy-six percent of those questioned in the poll disapprove of how he is handling his job.

And all this reported on the day Decider George hosted President-Elect Obama to the White House for a little sit-down with the wives.
Two-thirds of all US peoples have a positive view of Obama, according to CNN’s poll, and three-fourths think he’ll be a good president.
Noboby but his mother even cares for Decider George.

In a story in the New York Times about the Obamas’ White House visit, the last graph painted the picture:

• A sense of anticipation extended beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
  As the Obamas’ limousine made its way to the White House, hundreds of people lined the streets, craning their necks to see.
  When the door opened and the couple stepped out to greet the Bushes, there was an unfamiliar sound: cheering outside the White House gates.

Just wondering, ‘Why arn’t they turning?’