Today is when America celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Junior's birthday, so I thought it would be an appropriate day to discuss a cultural change in America over the polite terminology used to identify what might be called characteristics of (take your pick) race, ethnicity, or cultural identity. I'll warn you from the start, however, that this is not the usual discussion most people would associate with today's holiday, but rather something which has left me scratching my head trying to figure out the reasoning behind. I will begin with one of the usual discussions people have today, and then branch off from there, in an attempt to relate it all in a loose fashion to Dr. King's holiday.

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We know there's that pesky clause in the Constitution and all, but doesn't it seem like today would have been more appropriate for Donald Trump's inauguration? That's our way of saying "Happy Friday the 13th" to everyone, we should point out. Ahem.

During certain periods of the year, we have been known to overuse sports metaphors when talking about politics. But our guess is that the favorite quotes to overuse for the next four years will be those from Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. We were reminded of one of these while watching the week unfold, from a Trump press conference to the confirmation hearings to the Republicans smacking into reality on their "repeal and replace with nothing" dreams for Obamacare. Here's the quote:

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

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I've been taking a look back at the Obama presidency this week, so I thought it'd only be fair to look forward today and lay out the possible outcomes of the presidency of Donald Trump. Now, before I even start, I realize this is largely a fool's errand, for any number of reasons. But that's never stopped me before, and today I intend not to make predictions of what will happen, but rather run the whole gamut of what could conceivably happen. If rampant speculation without a shred of conclusion isn't your cup of tea, then I'd advise just skipping today's column altogether.

Predicting any future president's legacy is impossible, of course, because nobody knows what will happen. Anything can happen in American politics, which is only proven by the fact that Donald Trump is about to be sworn in as president. But more importantly, external events often have more to do with how a president is seen later on than anything anyone could have predicted on Inauguration Day. Nobody thought George W. Bush would largely be remembered as a war president in January of 2001, for instance. External events (whether domestic or foreign) often shape a presidency in ways the campaign never anticipated, in other words. So Trump could be remembered later for something nobody expects right now. I'm sure I'll be reading this column in four years' time and laugh at all the things I got wrong, but so be it.

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Last night, President Barack Obama bid the American public farewell. He gave a speech that was inspiring, and called upon Americans to get involved in the political process in a multitude of ways. Like many historic farewell addresses (even quoting from George Washington's), it also delivered a warning about what Obama perceives as current and future dangers which threaten America. Washington's farewell address, when read in full, contains a scathing denunciation of the mere concept of political parties (called "factions" at the time), and Obama's followed suit in denouncing the rabidly partisan era we now find ourselves in.

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Before I begin my main thesis today, a clarification of terms is necessary. America has certainly had its fair share of playboy presidents (see: Bill Clinton, J.F.K., et al), but it seems we're in a transition point between what might be called two Playboy presidents. That capital "P" and the italics signify the magazine, not the general term, in other words.

Playboy magazine was always known chiefly for its main draw -- photographs of glamorously naked women. There's no denying that. "I only read it for the articles" is now actually a cliché, in fact, although some impressive writing certainly did appear between the photo spreads. Both the fiction and the non-fiction was impressive, which is what set Playboy apart from what all the other "men's magazines" available at the time. For instance, Jimmy Carter admitted his "lust in his heart" in a Playboy interview -- which sent some ripples across the political world at the time.

But when I was thinking both about the end of the Barack Obama presidency and the beginning of the Donald Trump era, I realized that there were two other aspects of Playboy worth commenting on. Both Obama and Trump grew up in what might be called the golden age of Playboy, the 1950s through the 1970s. And both seem to embody these two aspects.

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Due to circumstances beyond my control, there will be no column today. We got hit with a huge storm this weekend, and woke up with no power today. We finally got our power back late in the day, but too late to put together a coherent column, sorry. Another storm is on the way tomorrow, but it doesn't look anywhere near as bad, so here's hoping tomorrow's column will appear as usual. Again, apologies for the interruption of service, but without power it's tough to blog....

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Welcome back everyone to our regular weekly roundup! We've been on our usual year-end hiatus for the past few weeks, pre-empted by our year-end awards columns (Part 1 and Part 2). But now that Congress is slinking back to the swamps of Washington, it's time to start looking forward once again. And we promise, we are going to explain that rather cryptic title, after we dispense with an initial bit of idiocy.

Speaking of Congress and swampiness (swampitude?), the Republicans in the House of Representatives decided to make its first order of business gutting a congressional ethics office. This was such blatant swampery that they had to hastily back away from the plan the next day, after meeting at night in secret to come up with the brilliant plan. Not only were they loudly denounced by Democrats, Donald Trump even had to tweet his displeasure -- although, while the Democrats opposed the idea because it was a bad one, Trump was merely annoyed at the scheduling of trashing an ethics office, implying he'd be fine if they got around to it later on. This was misreported by most of the media, it almost goes without saying.

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Now that Republicans control all branches of the federal government, their base is going to expect them to make good on their promises. However, what we're already seeing is that political rhetoric that helps get you elected isn't the same thing as actual reality. It's going to be interesting to see GOP rhetoric collide with the hard, cold facts of reality in the next few months, and nowhere is this more true than on the issue of healthcare reform.

Republicans have already started to realize that their campaign rhetoric isn't reality, moving quickly from "repeal and replace" to "repeal and delay." There's a reason for this, and the reason is they can't agree among themselves what to replace Obamacare with -- because they are scared of seeing headlines such as: "Millions Will Lose Coverage Under GOP Plan," or, perhaps, "GOP Plan Will Blow $10 Trillion Hole In Budget."

Let's run down the core Republican rhetoric, and introduce some reality to the picture. Picture one of those period pieces on Masterpiece Theater: "Republican Rhetoric, may I introduce you to Mr. Reality? Mr. Reality, meet Rhetoric."

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Obama's Very Good Year

Obama's third, or "lame-duck" honeymoon continued strong in December, putting Obama at the highest point in public opinion polls that he's seen during his entire second term in office. In other words, he's stronger now than he was when sworn in for the second time, four years ago. Obama set four second-term records this month, hitting a job approval high in both daily and monthly average poll ratings, while also charting new daily and monthly lows in job disapproval. Obama had a great December, which was the capstone on the best year he's ever had during his entire presidency. Let's take a look at the penultimate chart of Obama's presidency:

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

December, 2016

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From the shores of Gitchee Gumee comes, as always, the official banished words list of the year. Every year (since 1976) the Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan graces us with this list of overused and annoying phrases and the 2017 list is longer than ever. Without further ado, let's get right to this year's crop of banished words and phrases.

You, Sir

Focus

Bête Noir

Town Hall Meeting

Post-Truth

Guesstimate

831

Historic

Manicured

Echo Chamber

On Fleek

Bigly

Ghost

Dadbod

Listicle

"Get your dandruff up..."

Selfie Drone

Frankenfruit

Disruption

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