It finally comes down to today. We've watched all this with dismay and outrage. Offered our thoughts, our gripes, our hopes and aspirations. Our considered opinions and our expressions of conscience. Now we have to vote and we have to hope. We have to hope that these two years of intense dialogue have raised the level of awareness enough to vote our hope and our sanity and our better aspirations, not our fears. In my judgement, in 2004 John Kerry could have run a stronger campaign than he did. He underestimated the enemy he was fighting. He, and we didn't fully appreciate the fact that the Bush campaign machine was run by soulless thugs who believe in nothing but power for its own sake and were willing to do anything to have it. Because of our collective fear and trauma, we couldn't fully see that we were all being exploited in the basest, most unconscionable kind of political game ever imagined. We have ruminated at length about this rape of our American soul, this insult to our injury. Now the time has come to do something about it.

To the Democrats' credit, they've got some strong contenders out there, from Deval Patrick who looks to win a landslide victory for governor here in MA, to John Tester out in MT who seems,if the Salon article is correct, in a clear lead over Conrad Burns in early voting. Tester looks a big mountain of a man with a brush cut, and his simple focus on doing the right things makes me wonder if I had it wrong about the Big Sky State. I think we, liberals, progressives, independents, and Democrats will have reason to be proud today. Even fair-minded Republicans will have reason to be thankful today. Because if we do what's right and act like citizens, we may actually begin to get our soul back, and that would be the beginning of our long journey back to the country we remember.

We have taken it.

It was the hardest thing to do, but we did it. We pulled back from the abyss. As I've been saying, there's a lot of work to be done to return us to sanity, but we have taken the first step. We listened to our better selves, our better sense. George Bush doesn't understand this. Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman don't understand this. But we understand this. We knew the right thing to do, and we did it. WE DID IT! Now if we keep going and take the next step, we can be what we actually are again.

GOD BLESS THE USA!

Ken Mehlman is talking about sticking to conservative reform principles. Interesting. You mean THE ONES THAT GOT YOU HERE? I've been hearing all about Republicans having to get back to their "core values" and all this. The truth is that Republican "core values" is what's got them in the fix that they're in and it's the rejection of those "core values" by the American public yesterday that has them in the minority as of the sunrise of this morning. Assuming things move this way, the ass-whoopin' they got is nothing like the ass-whoopin' they're about to get. Investigations. Subpoena Power. Evidence of systemic corruption within the Republican Party. This stuff was just starting to ooze out despite the attempts to cover it up. To put this in simple language that the troglodytes of the Right understand, YOU SHIT THE BED! You shit on everything you touched from the war, the Constitution, the rule of law, the economy, EVERYTHING! Now you can either "man up", realize you lost and help clean up this mess you've created or you can GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!!

In fact, forget it. JUST GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!!

Don't let the door hit you in the ass.

I would like to suggest that far from the notion that President Bush can salvage his tenure from the ravages of history if he actually attempts to be "concilliatory", the very opposite is in fact closer to the truth. The "thumpin" that his party took is a repudiation of his kind of governing (from the outrageously extreme right), his ideology, and the spectacularly bad policy that has resulted from it, which would include the current quagmire in Iraq, but is not limited to it. After all the polls have been taken and the surveys have been done, the only litmus test that matters is the one submitted to the voters on Tuesday. Dumping Donald Rumsfeld is to me, a clear sign that the implosion that we have all watched (and conservatives have denied) for more than a year is in fact, complete. The truth is, W does not have it in him to be anything but combative and resistant to change. He was exactly that on the campaign trail before the final denouement on Tuesday. Does anyone actually believe that will change now that Rome has been destroyed and the palace sacked?

I, for one cannot accept that. Besides, I'm not inclined towards showing mercy after the trashing of our country and its ideals that's occured the last 6 years under this band of petty thugs. There's no legacy to save here. Even if there was, Bush is not smart enough (as Reagan was) to know how to do it. So let the investigations begin. Let the entire ugly truth out, and let this pretender slouch toward his ignominious end either by retirement or impeachment, but God, do not think for one moment that anything he can do will "salvage" the rubble of this pathetic excuse for an administration. As for the reckoning of history, it would be considered a pardon, in my judgement, if the Bush Presidency was deemed to be merely one of the worst, and not THE WORST in the annals of the Republic.