Outlook 2004
We can't help ourselves. No matter how bad the last year, how much pain and calamity it brought, each New Year gives fresh cause for hope, brave new expectations that, yes, things will be better. Beginning the fifth year of the new century, the sap of optimism rises again. A presidential election awaits, a huge corner has just been turned in Iraq, and America's economy looks once again like a prizefighter ready to lick all comers.
There are challenges, of course--no New Year comes without them. America's military is stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, and new threats loom in other places, like North Korea. But hope, on balance, prevails. It must, at least at this time of year.
This story appears in the December 29, 2003 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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