Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Doing What Donkeys Do Best


"You’re the ones who made this bed. Now you’re the ones who are going to have to move over so a gay couple can sleep in it. Tomorrow you’re all going to wake up in a brave new world. A world where the constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem-cell research lab run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning flags. Where tax & spend Democrats take all your hard-earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh – and everybody’s high!"
-- Stephen Colbert

Okay, we admit it. We’re a teeny bit high today. Not on drugs, but on the idea that the orderly transition of a government by the people, of the people, and for the people has not perished from this earth.

Oh, yeah, and we like the fact that the Democratic donkey did what donkeys do best: kicking.

We have to admit that as Democrats, we are not given to premature pronouncements or even the kind of self-empowered optimism found among members of other political parties. It wasn’t until the crawl along the bottom of our television screens started mounting up Democratic victories that we allowed ourselves to believe that what the pundits predicted would actually happen.

And even now, we fret a bit. Will Congress become even further to the right with the exit of moderate Republicans and the entrance of centrist Democrats? Can a Democrat capture the White House if there’s a Democratic majority in Congress? Will the Democrats really focus on doing what's good for the country, and not indulge in revenge politics?

One thing is certain – the brutality of the war in Iraq and the flagrant misbehavior by GOP office holders has worn the people down. And the Democrats have kicked the bums out.

Only time will tell if this is a good thing. But right now, riding on the wave of optimism that comes with the balance of powers in action, we look forward with the expectation that President Bush will finally live up to his 2000 campaign promise, that he is a uniter, not a divider.

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