When I was a student in the Soviet Union, during Gorbachev’s final months, my landlady used to take the dog out for a walk at the same time every night. Since it was winter and I am no dog lover, I decided not to join her. But when the weather cleared up I once accompanied her and found that she met several other local dog owners at exactly the same time. The timing, it turned out, was no coincidence. They called it Dog Hour–the moment when the state-sponsored news program

On Friday, the day Congress passed the stimulus bill, more than 250 people arrived at the Holiday Inn in Somerset for a careers fair. There are scenes like this all over the country. In San Francisco last week, queues for a similar fair went out of the door and around the block. In Miami last month, a thousand people waited in line, some overnight, for just 35 firefighter jobs.

Pity the Republicans. Defeated in the presidential election, depleted in Congress and departing from the White House in disgrace, they are a shell of their previously bullish selves. As much of the country, and indeed the world, celebrated the inauguration two weeks ago, they looked askance. It was unclear how many of them realised that one of the reasons this particular ceremonial theatre was so popular was because they were leaving the stage.