Thank God (or our Lucky Stars, perhaps)

The dissembler and his backseat bullies disassembled. The bluff and bluster called on the mat. A six-year aberration at least partially corrected and justice, though delayed, delivered. Even through the fog of wars against their own ideals -- freedoms restricted in the name of freedom, democracy promulgated by gunpoint, Christian pride, promotion, and certainty, not so different than anecdotal Lucifer's, standing proxy for love and peace -- even through this, a chain reaction of scattered majorities voted for 'terrorism' and 'the culture of death' ('death taxes', even). I thought I might have to finish out my twenties under this cloud darkening even our language, but now I feel grateful to be part of this country again: Far, far, far from perfect, but how wistfully and agonizingly, how chaotically but also how durably, good.

The Republican Southern Strategy still a living memory -- Ken Mehlman only last year confessing in no uncertain terms to the NAACP convention that when the party took political advantage of southern racist opposition to desegregation, it was morally wrong -- the party now courts black candidates to atone and to compete. I really hope to live to see the day, maybe three or four decades from now, when the party comes to the HRC or its future equivalent and apologizes for Republican Strategy #2. In all honesty, it takes me two times to learn anything, too.