Wednesday, November 08, 2006

On the results of the mid-term elections

Well, you won’t have Senator Man-on-Dog to kick around anymore. For the first time in 12 years, the Democrats succeeded in gaining control of the House of Representatives and scored significant victories in the Senate, which hangs in the balance as I type this. The jury remains out on whether or not former Secretary of the Navy James Webb has triumphed over Virginia Senator George “macaca” Allen, but Rick Santorum, senator from my native state of Pennsylvania, has mercifully been removed from the national stage. Readers may remember Santorum from this immortal exchange with an Associated Press reporter in 2003:

SANTORUM: Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. … It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality —

AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

SANTORUM: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately.

South Dakota voters also rejected a sweeping abortion ban, approved by the state legislature to outlaw all abortions except in cases where a mother’s life was at stake. Despite what were allegations of voter intimidation in Virginia and technical difficulties elsewhere (I myself voted without incident here in Queens), it appears that America took a long look at six years of war-mongering empire-building, ceaseless scandals and attempts at far-right fundamentalist social engineering and decided that, no, they had just about enough of that.

Finally some good news.

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