From the US: what now for political junkie journalists?

We're forced to uncover our eyes and see that 21 months spent as an emotionally volatile political junkie creates the same monster as any other drug would; that excess spawns dependence; that eventually our sources are tapped and a fix is unattainable.

The fog has lifted and we're unable to look away from the naked truth of having it all stripped away in a single night, then teasingly replaced by the prospect of a stupid inauguration ceremony: loss creates delirium, and anticipation creates full-blown madness.

We plead as passionately now for the end of the Bush era as we did for the end of the sleazy campaign season. Our pleas have turned to loathing as reality sinks in and we're forced to accept that the once red-carpeted campaign trail has turned to gravel, and although the resurfacing process will begin again in two years, the World Series of politics, and journalism, will not return for another four. Four more years …

The sudden void is now screaming for its fix, and as before Election Day, it feels like ages until Obama is to be sworn in. We have the well-meaning Constitution to thank for that, as it provides us political junkies a three-month rehabilitation period to rediscover a normal sleeping pattern, regular diet and moderate level of adult beverage consumption.

The only semi-comforting part about this somehow unplanned-for state of shock is that we're not alone, we junkies. Not at all. Drained and deranged, trembling and salivating like a dog awaiting the release of that dangling bone from a teasing master, we finally arrive, all of us, but we arrive at the same dead-end location.

We're overwhelmed with a sense of uselessness. The streets are crawling with fedora-wearing newspaper men wandering around in a drunken state of hallucination, not in celebration but remorse, trying to exercise this shared demon but are capable only of assuaging the election-induced depression by moaning and puking and yelling at shadows from the streetlamps.

The daily newspaper journalists are the last to turn their backs on the campaign, to admit it is over and accept their inevitable and expected return to meeting quotas with press release regurgitations about the local Elks Lodge event this weekend, PTA meetings, flu shot season.

Media reports have turned purely speculative as the Obama presidency lays in wait and our lame duck president waddles around the White House in his last days, avoiding pretzels and contemplating how to rig the Texas governor election and unseat incumbent and actual Air Force captain Rick Perry in 2010.

Their laborious fruits come far short of quenching our thirsts as we refresh Google News and find a slew of stories only on the coulds and shoulds and mays and mights of the new administration: "Obama could signal a new brand of politics" (Oakland Tribune, Calif.); "Obama should back job-creating tax cuts" (Press-Register); Obama may reverse Bush policies on stem cells, drilling, abortion" (CNN); "Obama might tap former Bush antitrust staffer" (The Daily Deal).

We know the end has come, but the reporters still sniffing out the campaign trail are capable only of drawing private nods of sympathy, even pity, from the audience that just two months earlier had stayed up all night waiting for another instalment of the Campaign Trail blog. And then, one day, we see our journalistic heroes break down, their desperation at unfathomable lows: a Tampa Bay source informs us, "No dog yet for Obama family."

Humour columnists from LA to the suddenly great democratic state of North Carolina are far more flamboyant about their loss. They're either writing pieces about what little there is left to write about, or they're admittedly entering hibernation until 2012, when they pray for the second coming of the Palin Effect - or a senatorial run by Dubya.

The updates on the latest former vice presidential candidate pale-in comparison to the gaffes she provided on the trail; news about McCain's retirement plans are as engaging as his stump speeches were for the 1,500 people who attended months earlier; and as the Obama administration continues its search for cabinet members, the headlines are heavy in references to "vetting", the word choice surely a deliberate if last-minute poke at the Republican ticket.

Depression sinks in, the New York Times blog goes on the deactivation list, and I bow my head in shame at having to admit that I'm starting to miss Joe the Plumber.