If U.S. President-elect Barack Obama can walk on water, then change really is coming to the United States and the world. If there are no more big unexploded bombs buried in the world's financial systems, then this may be just an ordinary recession. But the most telling image of 2008 was Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi throwing his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush. What he did had enormous resonance elsewhere.

This is the end of an era, and everybody knows it. In the minds of most people we are not just saying farewell to 2008, but also saying good riddance to a long period when brutal and ignorant policies reigned supreme. We are saying goodbye to Bush, and al-Zaidi said it most eloquently.

We are bound to be disappointed by the change, of course. Bush did not create all of the world's problems, and they will not vanish when he does. In particular, the global financial crisis that exploded when the Bush administration decided not to save the foundering Lehman Brothers investment bank in September still has some distance to run, and the full extent of the damage is not yet known.