If you step back you will find that not much has changed. The republicans
gained ground in a senate that they already controlled but still lack the 60
votes needed to put anything radical through. They also continue to control
the house and presidency just like yesterday. The democrats maneuvered
themselves out of the running by incorporating ideas into their platform
(gay marrige) that did not gain them a single vote but cost them many. They
fronted a candidate that came across as arogant and spoiled. They will
figure out these errors and try to correct them. In two years there will be
another election for the house and some senate seats which will preclude the
republicans from doing anything to wild.

It is unfortunate when either side controls all three levers but it has
happened before and we will get through this time too.

Mike
MU-2


"David Brooks" wrote in message
...
One thing - one of so very many things - I learned in my five years of
flying is that partisan politics does not fit into the cockpit. Most of my
flight instructors have, I know, been to the right of me politically. I
had
a most enjoyable flight with CJ - although he has since earned my undying
enmity by unapologetically using the term "Final Solution" in connection
with me and people like me, an astonishing thought coming from an avowedly
religious man, but telling and apt.

But now it seems the nation has, albeit by a slim margin, re-elected a
weak,
hypocritical, murderous coward. Three years ago, when some writers on the
left started talking about fascism, I thought that an absurd stretch. No
longer. The parallels are not precise - they never are - but the broad
sweep
and many of the components of a new fascist state are in place. The 48%
who
didn't vote for this disaster keep knocking on my consciousness, but they
are now feeble and impotent. The thugs are in charge.

That being so, and despite what should be an apolitical setting, I can no
longer in good faith keep company with a group of which the majority, I
know, has elected to deliver the country I love, and chose as my home,
into
the hands of Bush and his repressive, regressive masters.

So long. Thanks for all the conversations. You guys have made me a better
pilot.

-- David Brooks