Let This Acceptance Take

I find very little grace in political results.  I’m one of those teacher’s-pet liberals who not only hopes others vote in accord with my political views but asks that they do so for the right reasons.  In recent weeks, had I encountered a voter who said, "I normally vote Republican, but this whole Foley scandal has turned me off," I would have replied, "Mark Foley supported enormous tax cuts to the wealthiest fraction of society while government spending expanded beyond that of the Reagan Administration.  He unreservedly embraced the invasion of Iraq and every infringement of civil liberties Bush asked for.  He did his level best to increase the government’s role as cultural nanny and enforcer of social mores as construed by his narrow-minded constituency.  If your only objection to Foley was that he got caught sending racy messages to teenagers, then—please—go vote for Republicans with the other cowards."

I grant that it’s something of a relief to see evidence that, despite gerrymanders and Diebold, Rove’s "permanent majority" hasn’t yet been locked in.  And watching Bush contradict himself and accept Rumsfeld’s resignation was fun.  But looking over the "Blue Wave," I just want to shout, "Where the fuck were you people in 2004?"  More to the point, what do we know now that we didn’t know two years ago?  Nothing, of course.  And now we have Roberts and Alito on the bench, the Military Commissions Act suspended habeus corpus, and thousands more Americans and Iraqis have been maimed and killed.  So pardon me if I’m not very gracious.

Please remember Veterans Day.