Warning: Not Edited. Rated PG. Just not edited.

I'm with Hugh. It's not a time for gloating, just great relief, great thanks, and great hope. I feel a great deal like I imagine John Wesley Powell must have felt going through the first set of rapids in the Grand Canyon. There's no sense climbing out - three guys tried that and never came back. We've got no idea how long this goes on. But those rapids, going through them was hell, but we're through them now.

Still, it's worth exulting in the depression of the maniacal left. So, after Hugh, after the coffee shop, and in the car to class, it was over to Randi Rhodes and Air America!, that ongoing contribution-in-kind to the flesh-eating virus of Michael-Mooreism, eating away at a once-great party. Maybe it says something about me that the only time I could listen to Air America for more than, oh 30 seconds, was right after everything they hold dear had gone up in smoke on the runway. I like to think it says something about them.

When I tune in, she'd going on about Diebold! and Ohio! and Missing Ballots! and electronic voting machines!

I'd be happier with a paper trail, too, Randi. One like the punch cards provide, ahem. I wasn't the one who shrieked that punch-cards were Torquemada's polling device, or sued to stop a recall election because not everyone was using electronic machines yet.

Jeb Bush! and Broward! and we'll never know! Even the Bloody Chad made an appearance, where the newspapers after the fact showed that 6 our of 9 Post-Election Recount Scenarios recommend Gore. That is, if there had even been a recount.

When that's sort of played out, "Sigh, I'm not saying it isn't over, just that we know they stole Ohio." She's off on how "they" ("they" being "you") have established "one-party government" where "dissent isn't allowed." Where, and I'm not making this up, people like her, who oppose the war, will be treated like Salem Witches by the People of a Certain Kind of Religion who now run the government. "We've turned the clock back so far...." So far that what? That there are no clocks, just lines on a big rock in the middle of town that are useless, useless! when the sun's not out. Which is always, now that "they've" stolen the sun!

Enough. I can listen to this now, knowing that their heads exploded and their technicians are busy cleaning pumpkin off the studio walls. But I don't want to. I listen to this for about 15 minutes, and I feel the physical heat that accompanies pain and unpleasantness. I long for Radio That Aims at My Head Not Below My Belt.

I was really worried at times on Monday, even with Obi-Wan and Qui Gong and the gang at Kerry Spot telling me that the Force was with Bush. (At one point Tuesday night, when things were uncertain, I tried a pidgin accent a la Jar-Jar, "Ain't nobody know nuthin'". Ben: "That's not very convincing." Me: "Yeah, well neither was Jar-Jar.")

But I got up from the makeshift studio in the doomed Senate campaign believing that everything would be all right. Good leaders will do that for you.