R.E.L.I.E.F.

I am relieved. As this wildly wonderful week pulls to a close, I am relieved.

Turns out, the Republicans haven't had Osama bin Laden stashed in an attic, waiting to pull him out on November 6.

Turns out, the system works. The truth is, the "American People"...all us regular folk, don't like it when our government swings too violently to the right or the left. Sometimes we push it, but in the end, we always try to pull things back to the center. And we do. By voting. In large numbers. And when we do that, we prove the fundamental genius of this thing called democracy.

Listen, I have been afraid. The last six years have increasingly scared the crap out of me. We've had a President who believes in expanding the powers of the executive branch and a rubber stamp Congress that was all too willing to let him run amok. Things like privacy, decency and habeaus corpus have gone missing. And all the while, fine people with decent minds have said, "It's ok. I have nothing to hide. I don't care who listens to my conversations". And other equally fine people with decent minds have been prone to conspiracy theories and dark imaginings.

And golly, didn't they try to rend us apart? All one had to do was raise a question to be accused of lacking patriotism. All one had to do was belong to one party and be accused of either being a hateful, bigoted, crazy-for-the-Apocolypse nut job or a terrorist-loving, America-hating traitor. There was no middle ground. And a lot of us bought it. Even the ones who should have known better.

We have spent the last six years in All or Nothing Land. You had to be a conservative or a liberal, a patriot or a traitor. You couldn't say much of anything without worrying that you had to explain yourself. The criteria for membership to various clubs was clear and if you didn't adhere 100%, there was no sense in applying.

But today, I'm not afraid. I know that our president can't unilaterally start Armageddon just because he thinks that's what Jesus wants him to do. I know that some of the worst assaults on the Constitution can now be turned back. I know that there are already people talking a'plenty about the need for diplomacy and negotiation. The federal government might actually raise the minimum wage. Steps may now be taken toward getting the budget back under control so that The Child and The Child's Child don't have to be burdened with massive federal debt. There may, finally, be a political solution to the misbegotten morass that is Iraq. And then, in 2 years, George W. Bush will move off to Crawford with his comic books and whatever "legacy" he is able to salvage* and no matter who is elected in '08, Republican or Democrat he** can't POSSIBLY be worse than George W. Bush has been.

Checks and balances. It's a pretty simple concept and it works pretty well. I look forward to seeing it in action over the next 2 years.

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* Whatever positive legacy he achieves will be in these last 2 years, with the assistance of a Democratic legislature. The GOP failed Bush as much as they failed the rest of us.

** I love Hillary Clinton but I think it would be a huge mistake for her to run for president in '08. This country will elect a black man before it elects a woman of any color. The only way we get a woman president in the first half of this century is if Cheney and Bush were impeached and Pelosi became President. And that ain't happening. Just saying. Bet me some cheese.