Lileks on the election

The funniest post-election wrap-up so far, much funnier than Coulter's. Lileks observes, "Democrats ran on a two-plank platform: not mentioning the taxes they would raise, and promising to lose the war faster than Bush." Here are the final paragraphs (registration required):

At the end of the day, some pundits detect a sea change: Jesusland has come to its senses and become Rosie O'Streisandland. Fear has given way to Love. The great unspoken national sympathy for the Dixie Chicks has finally asserted itself. Coast to coast, state by state, people are waking from the long national nightmare and deciding that we're undertaxed, underaborted, under-regulated, underindicted and something else, about Katrina — underlevied, perhaps? We're certainly overmacaca'd. No one really knows what "macaca" means, but it's the mysteries that give life its sweet allure.

What matters are the lessons each party learns. The Democrats might look at themselves in the mirror and ask: Is it possible the voters just wanted that old standby, change? They weren't necessarily voting for slinking out of Iranam — sorry, Vietnaq — sorry, whatever, that messy hot country somewhere. Maybe they weren't voting to put the nation's business on hold while we hold hearings over the quality of French intelligence in 2003?

Likewise, the Republicans might peer at the pale, drawn face in the glass and wonder: Could this be more than an ill-tempered blurt of disaffection over our spending, our nonchalance toward the issues that motivate the base, our institutional complacency? Might it also reflect our failure to correctly define the enemy, choosing to wage a war on "terror" instead of the states and cultures that support it? And the face in the mirror will probably say: NAAAAAHH.

See? Consensus already. It's going to be a great Congress!

(Hat Tip: Lucianne.com)

Tags: election, Lileks, Coulter, Iraq, Democrats, Republicans