corrente

Rebecca at Approximately Perfect, lives up to that witty name (the blog's, though "Rebecca" is surely a very lovely name) while taking on a gloating Michelle Malkin, who uses that hack job of a red/blue map of America by to erase the notion that America is anything but all red now.

Rebecca, in typical fashion for a member of the reality-based community, had the brilliant idea of overlaying the hack job map with a map which shows population density, and comes up with a map of as many colorsas Joseph's coat. (See, we can be Biblical, too) The new map is truly a thing of beauty. Thank-you Rebecca.

And if you need a little more bucking up, our hero, Joe Conason, writing in Salon, puts the nightmare of Tuesday in perspective by reminding us not to forget history.

So for the moment set aside the triumphal proclamations from the Republican leadership and their echoes in the media, along with the petty recriminations against John Kerry, who has devoted his life to public service and deserves admiration for the honorable campaign he waged against unscrupulous opponents. As a presidential candidate he had his virtues and flaws, which obviously differed from those of George W. Bush -- and will surely differ from those of the next Democratic nominee.

A longer perspective is more pertinent and more relevant to the future than listening to televised imbeciles maundering about the "death of liberalism." (Had the Democrat won by three points and a couple dozen electoral votes, nobody would be touting the "death of conservatism.") Progressives and reactionaries in America have both survived much sharper electoral rejections than this one. Both sides tend to overreact to such rejection in an election's emotional aftermath.

Exaggeration is the rule, not the exception, in the post-election autopsy. Sweeping pronouncements about this year's close, hotly contested campaign should be considered skeptically, especially when Republican propagandists start to talk about their "mandate" and their "permanent majority." Such claims are convincing only to citizens (and journalists) suffering from amnesia.

Only six years ago, the self-appointed guardians of "moral values" wailed their despair when midterm voters rejected the Republican impeachment jihad, and pundits pondered the political demise of the religious right. Paul Weyrich, architect of the modern religious right, described Bill Clinton's escape from judgment in near-apocalyptic terms, as a signal for the "godly" to withdraw from politics. The Republican House members defenestrated the outspoken proponent of "moral values" then serving as speaker, and his would-be successor, too. But in the next election two years later, the Republicans came back to win the White House (with the assistance of Florida state officials and the Supreme Court), and kept control of both houses of Congress.

Twelve years ago, Clinton won the presidency and ousted a Republican president whose humiliation included receiving only 37 percent of the popular vote. The Democrats began the Clinton administration with control of both House and Senate. Two years later, they lost both houses in the stunning "Contract With America" midterm, which brought Newt Gingrich to power as speaker. (We all know what soon happened to him -- see 1998 above.) The great minds of the nation declared Clinton "irrelevant," predicting in their wisdom that he could not possibly win reelection and must be replaced by the Democrats. They were wrong, of course.

That's all I can quote in good conscience. If you don't have a subscription to Salon, consider getting one. David Talbot, for all his idiosyncracies, chief among which is surely his strange admiration for Camille Paglia, who has popped up, yet again, to rub salt into the wounds of the progressive left she purports to count herself among, other than that, Talbot has done a great and valuable job of keeping Salon viable and increasingly invaluable.

And don't miss the Farmer's intriguing, wholly original suggestion for who and what should be the Democratic standard bearer in 2008. (back)