A Readable Lament

Michelle Cottle's piece in the New Republic is one of the better post-election laments I've read. Here's a few snippets:

"Now I realize that regaining your zip can be difficult when everyone's yammering about the utter bleakness of your position. So to help jumpstart the recovery, I'd like to point out a handful of bright spots to come out of Tuesday. Most are minor, but, hell, this week, non-conservatives have gotta find solace wherever we can:

The Iraq mess. As badly as his team has bungled the occupation thus far, Bush still has a better shot at making things right than Kerry did. If nothing else, George and Dick will have greater freedom to request more money or troops (or, alternatively, to start calling the troops home) than would a Democratic commander-in-chief who had to keep one eye on the Republican Congress and one on his reelection chances."

A little honest realism there. Takes some guts to say that when your party is reeling.

"We will all be spared Teresa Heinz Kerry as First Lady. Forget Hillary: A few months of the imperious, impolitic Tuh-ray-zah would have convinced all of red-state America (and a fair chunk of blue) that maybe the Taliban was onto something with that policy about women being neither seen nor heard"

Yeah, Teresa got annoying fast. I tried to like her, but in the end, I think everyone realized that 4 years of Teresa would be intolerable. Half-drunk eccentric socialite heiresses are better left to the foreign countries they came from. Teresa is politics' answer to Karen from Will and Grace, and like Karen, Teresa can only be taken in small doses (aka, less than 23 minutes a week, with a much-needed break in the summer).