Silflay Hraka

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Pretty cool election. I didn’t plan to stay up five hours past my bedtime. It just happened. Here’s a handful of political thoughts from the last 24 hours:

1) While there is some entertainment value in watching various eyes at CBS News tear-up over this horrific and shocking turn of events, there’s no beating the various liberal blogs for anger, denial, blame, conspiracy fantasies, and pure, apoplectic horror. Try the ususal cast of yoyos at Democratic Underground. This stuff brings me joy.

2) Virtually every network’s election coverage included some lib heaping mawkish praise on Kerry for conceding an election he obviously lost. Thanks to the work of Gore and flunkies, admitting defeat is no longer an act of gentlemanly behavior, but rather, an act of sacrificial patriotism.

3) Speaking of defeat, let’s hear it for Kerry advisor Bob Shrum. With the Boston Red Sox off the proverbial shnide, Shrum fulfills my need for sisyphusian futility. His 0-8 record in presidential elections is more impressive when you realize he had to skip both Clinton wins and send an insulting resignation to Jimmy Carter 10 days into the eventually successful 1976 campaign.

4) It still makes me a bit queasy that 48.4% of our nation consists of losers, freaks, cowards, social panhandlers and people-who-just-don’t-get-it. The grown-ups will run this country for four more years, but I don’t feel particularly comfortable with the electorate.

5) Wow. Folks really don’t like the idea of same-sex marriage.

6) When the Democrats rolled out John Edwards to address a dwindling crowd of dampened libs at about 3:00 AM, they introduced him as “the next vice-president of the United States.” Kind of pathetic. He was worthless in the South, and his “Kerry/Edwards will make the crippled walk” speech derailed what could have been a winning issue for Kerry in debate number three. Not since Admiral Stockdale has a wannabe veep done so little for the team.

7) Some person or persons jacked with the exit polls to depress Republican turnout. If you think otherwise, you’re either thinking too hard, or more likely, not thinking hard enough.

8) I am pretty darn happy that Erskine Bowles is not my senator. He did run some brutally funny campaign ads, though.

9) John Edwards lost the race for vice-president, and his vacant Senate seat was filled by a Republican. I call this “adding insult to personal injury.”

10) If we get even a short period of non-partisan, let’s make nice-nice cooperation, it will start circling the crapper the second Bush nominates a judge.

11) Here’s a link for those who need it. And if you see Michael Riefenstahl-Moore, tell him to bite me.

Please! Oh, pretty, pretty please.

Blue state warriors, it is time to secede. We will start the ball rolling next week with a petition the city council here in Chapel Hill to separate itself from the miserable state of North Carolina.

I wonder what our new flag will look like.

There’s nothing quite like the Science of Polling when it comes to accuracy: Zogby predicts Kerry victory.

Unredefeated! (lvi)

Man, The Daily Kos got smacked down hard.

And how did the 5,692 donors to the Kos Dozen do?

They funded a half million dollars’ worth of losers.
…
All told, that’s $547,157.97 of donated money, squandered on the basis of the mass trust placed in Moulitsas by his readers.

The Left’s fascination with the potential of the web has lead them down the primrose path before, yet (to horribly mix a metaphor) the pot of gold they see at the end of that path keeps proving to be an illusion. I wonder how long it will be before they realize, like China, that the free flow of information is not actually conducive to the success of their policies?

Not that the information flow is any more conducive to those on the Right, mind you. The threat of paternalism is a feature possessed by both political wings. If anything, the more one knows, the more one should come to distrust either side of the political spectrum–a quality conspicuous in its absence at DailyKos, where the proprietor abandoned his critical faculties in order to indulge in partisanship.

It’s no surprise that the DailyKos readership feels bitchslapped by the results of the election–though the blame rests with them alone. They confused kool-aid with data, and came back for more because they liked the taste.

Update: Salon issues the first mea culpa.

As I survey the wreckage of the lefty blogosphere Wednesday morning, it is easy to wonder: How could I, how could we, have been so wrong? How could the confidence and jubilation generated by the thriving communities at blogs like Atrios’ Eschaton and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga’s Daily Kos so thoroughly have evaporated into self-recrimination and despair?
…
Like many a left-winger with broadband access, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the past six months at such sites. I learned a lot about this country by doing so — there’s no better way to get quickly to the nitty-gritty of local politics and candidates all across the country than hearing from citizens involved. As a journalist, I’ve gotten scads of tips from the awesomely efficient early-warning system created by thousands of people coming together online. I enjoyed following the commentary on such sites during the presidential debates almost as much as I enjoyed watching John Kerry win them. And there’s no question that the lefty blogosphere proved to be an effective fundraising mechanism.

But I feel now much like a kid who ate too much Halloween candy — there’s a taste in my mouth that tells me I overdosed. I fell victim to one of the Internet’s most seductive illusions: the false reassurance of the echo chamber.

It may take a while to totally decipher the message the electorate has sent, but I think a few themes can be detected.

America to Michael Moore: Drop Dead
To George Soros: Your Money’s No Good Here
To Bruce Springsteen: Stick to Singing
To Bon Jovi: Unwanted, Dead Or Alive
To Puff Daddy: Make that “Vote AND die, at least as far as your influence with the kids goes.”
To Eminem: Mosh? Bosh, or perhaps “Pish-Posh”.
To Dan Rather: “Verify this, grandpa,”
To MoveOn: We did. Why won’t you?

More as I think of them.

Leave yours in the comments!

Update: One from the Corner

Hey France: Sucks to be you.

While most of you were watching the Presidential Election with anticipation, we here at Silflay Hraka were watching the race for the N.C. House in the 8th District. Not because this race is more important than any other, but because our friend somehow found himself as the Republican candidate for this office. Alas, it was not meant to be, and Curt Hendrix did not win the election. I guess now he will return to being a…….well, he really does not have to do anything, he is rich. Secretly, I think we were all hoping for a pork barrel job that would pay well without having to do too much.

Along with a friend who was running for a position in the N.C. House in the 8th District, we here at Silflay Hraka have another connection to one of this year’s candidates, albeit indirectly. Alan Thornburg (the incumbant) was running to keep his seat on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. He is married to a woman who worked with us at camp for one year, and was actually the roommate of one of our good friends from the same camp while they were both attending Duke University. I met the guy a couple of times before, and really didn’t know him very well, but did hear that he lost his bid for reelection. Yes, we apparently like to name drop here at Silflay Hraka, even if we don’t know the people.