I'm a conflicted mess today, despite the joyous electoral news, and despite the resignation of our current leading war criminal. On the one hand, I'm giddy: I want to call every conservative I know and gloat. I want to get drunk. I want to wave banners and shout and scream. I want to piss on a burning Bush effigy. I want to hug Dr. Dean for his insistence on a 50-state strategy.
On the other hand, I feel great trepidation. The Iraq war is still going on. Darfur will continue to be ignored. The Rahm Emmanuels of the world want to play nice with the Republicans instead of exposing their misdeeds. The housing market sucks and I want badly to sell and buy. The budget is a wreck and the deficit will require painful decisions that will likely cost the Democrats some of their gains in two years. I recall that for a long time I agitated on behalf of 3rd party options because the Democrats fucking suck.
This is why I gave up intensely following politics over a year ago. The dizzying highs and lows, the hopeful and cynical cycles, the sense that when regarded with an eye cast toward epic stretches of history that nothing in politics ever really changes--all of this is enormously costly to sensitive folk. The toll is spiritual, physical, emotional.
But I had a fucking blast watching the coverage last night. Santorum's surprisingly eloquent concession was a joyous disappointment; I'd waited to see him lose for so long that to see him act gentlemanly instead of like his typically aggressive dickhead self deprived me of much-anticipated schadenfreude. Joe Scarborough attacked Chris Matthews after Chris Matthews attacked Howard Dean and it was awesomely bad TV. When that Virginia nail-biter turned to Webb before midnight last evening I was ecstatic and hooting like the frat boys next door. I enjoyed the maudlin round-table of Fox News ghouls slumping slowly through the evening and pulling out their hair. Seeing Michelle Malkin subdued was a gleeful thing.
But there's so much wrong now that a really right day doesn't dispell the worries. I still may get drunk tonight, however. One must allow the Dionysian release from time to time, and yesterday is a damn good reason. Rumsfeld is another!
4 comments:
Am still shaking my head in disbelief...no more Katherine Harris, no more Rumsfeld, no more Santorum...AND Arizona voted for an animal rights bill that outlaws veal crates.
Can I have a group hug?
Best of all: Pat Robertson's 700 Club election coverage, by 8pm he was talking about the "tsunami" of victories for the republicans. We sat paralyzed as we watched the spectacle of real, genuine, undiluted Alzheimers disease live before our very eyes. Priceless.
Now that's more like it. I was starting to worry that you had gone soft in the head or something! And, you were starting to make me feel bad for going all 3rd party this time around.
This is the end of the visceral political impact of "9/11"!
Rumsfeld took the fall for Cheney..
Hopefully he's next
Marc H! Long time no hear--now you have one of those closeted Republican governors. Hope all is well in slightly bluer FL.
Nick--I checked with the Mrs. and MD state is requiring the Greens to get 7,000 signatures every four years to maintain their ballot status, and same goes for the Libertarians. The Greens have more then 12,000 to carry them through the next four years. That's lame bullshit--the Dems and Reps don't have to maintain their ballot status!
We need Cheney to stick around. What would we do if all the boogeymen disappeared?
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