Posted 11:22 PM by Gene

This is a momentous achievement. Those of us suspicious of The Lord's motives acknowledge that. We would like to believe with his election we've effectively eradicated race prejudice and perhaps even cast out the ghosts of the Civil War. History says we should know better, but we can hope. That is has taken us 232 years from the Declaration of Independence to purge this ill from our system, a job made harder because, for all their courage and fortitude, the Founders slipped by not condemning slavery's unspeakable evil, speaks a shame to us, but at least we can be proud tonight.

Our leader-elect has the capacity to be a fine president -- but that capacity will be limited if he lazes comfortably back on the tired old shibboleths of his party, and to the extent he enslaves himself to the cobweb-covered, dirt-encrusted Congressional table-pounders. We desire nothing more than to stop calling Him The Lord and capitalizing His pronoun. We hope someday to do so. We fear there are too many reasons why we sorrowfully will not. But we can hope.

We should keep in mind that the victory margin will not be much greater than the lunkheaded Dubya's against Sen. Hein-TZZZ. Indeed what we have are two successive protest votes: the first a protest against the wishy-washy Democratic foreign policy; the second a protest vote against incompetent, corrupt Republicans. And our Lord-elect won against a tired, bumbling, confused 71-year-old who didn't know Michigan from Montana. He richly deserved to lose, as did the airhead he appointed to the ticket and who probably won't win him Alaska. The Republicans lost tonight for the exact same reason they lost in '96: they appointed an ass atop the ticket. We cannot imagine who will run in '12; the only foreseeable candidate Mitt has Mormonism. We are troubled by the notion that the GOP could be as much in a funk as the Tories, who've been out of leadership for eleven years. But if the party can't get the leadership and the guts together it deserves it.

By the way, we see that old Arizonan's running mate won't speak tonight. That may be the first good decision the campaign made.

P. S. Some collegiate friends of some of the collegiate idiots who broke some glass on Broad Street last Thursday are out in force, meaning I won't get to sleep until 2. a. m. when the bars close, and they're merely reliving the World Series, and quite bluntly I say they're as much celebrating to get drunk as anything else. I'd like to drop EDDIE from the top of one of his beloved superexpensive condos for making Center City a college commons. With luck The Lord will pass over him.

P. S. at 12:20 a.m. I humbly stand partially corrected; some of the celebrants walked from Temple, about a good three miles, and to the extent they're black, they can let loose all night because they deserve it. I'm quite pleased for them. If I were black I'd be extremely happy, and would take to the streets myself. This does not apply to the white hangers on who I suspect are in force just to get drunk.