A year full of regrets, rejections and dismissals

Summing up, let me just say that I reject, repudiate, renounce, denounce, dismiss and utterly regret 2008.

Sayonara and good riddance.

Which is not intended to convey offense toward anyone of Japanese descent, nor to serve as commentary on any but the preceding 12 months of the Gregorian calendar. Not that other calendars aren't perfectly good.

In fact, I denounce any person or statement (or calendar) that disparages or causes distress to any creature on this great planet or divides us from any other planet in this universe and such creatures as, therein, may reside.

That being said, it is still nevertheless true that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein.

I mention this not to cause trouble, because I renounce trouble, but to cite one of the many odd utterings that defined 2008 as The Year of Denouncing and Repudiating.

Dare I say: 2008 was a veritable orgy of repudiation.

Despite our professed respect for walking the walk, talking the talk is the deal-breaker. It is required that anyone seeking public office be prepared to denounce any and all who have ever said anything remotely offensive to anyone.

"If you don't like my friend, I don't like my friend."

Thus, Barack Obama sought and was granted redemption by leaving his church and distancing himself from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his spiritual adviser for 20 years. The questions that mattered most were never really satisfactorily answered: Did Wright's now-famous rants represent his body of work? And, did Obama tolerate, not notice or not care about his preacher's offensive words? But never mind. More important than the content of a 20-year history was the denunciation, though even that sometimes isn't enough. Judgment, as always, is in the eye of one's opponent.

Hillary Clinton challenged Obama's denunciation of Louis Farrakhan, saying Obama should have rejected the Nation of Islam leader's endorsement. Obama said fine.

John McCain also had to rebuke unfortunate friends, including Ohio talk radio host Bill Cunningham and Texas televangelist John Hagee.

Cunningham couldn't resist repeatedly mentioning Obama's middle name as he stoked a Cincinnati crowd before a McCain appearance. McCain expressed regret for "any comments that may have been made about (Hillary and Obama) who are honorable Americans."

McCain also rejected Hagee's endorsement after learning of comments that Adolf Hitler was fulfilling God's will by advancing the Jews' return to Israel.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations insisted McCain repudiate the endorsement of Rev. Rod Parsley, his "spiritual guide," who has called Islam "an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world."

With no one left to denounce or repudiate, the American electorate repudiated everything else. Not just Bush's presidency and the GOP, but America's benighted past. Obama is Repudiation Personified. Given his cult status, it may be a matter of time before Washington becomes a western Mecca for Denunciations and Repudiations.

Human Rights Watch wants Obama to repudiate the Bush administration's counterterrorism measures. The Taliban wants Obama to repudiate "warmongering" policies.

Given a likely future rich in such demands, Obama might consider creating a Department of Repudiations post.

Alternatively, the president-elect could denounce denunciations and repudiate repudiations as the impotent posturings of a pandering past. He could punctuate his point by, say, inviting a controversial, divisive Evangelical minister to deliver the inaugural invocation. Oh, wait.

© 2008, Washington Post Writers Group