"BENNIE" DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE. Things look grim for employees of United Airlines, whose post-bankruptcy plans include this:

United has stated previously that it would most likely be forced to terminate and replace its employee pension plans to obtain the financing needed to exit bankruptcy. United has about USD$4.1 billion in pension funding due over the next five years.

If you feel bad for them, and wish they had the kind of protections workers had in the good old days, readjust your thinking. The Wall Street Journal (the esteemed news-gathering organization, not the froth factory) reports that companies have found a way to retract benefits promised to current retirees years ago:

Many companies have already cut back company-paid health-care coverage for retirees from their salaried staffs. But until recently, employers generally were barred from touching unionized retirees' benefits because they are spelled out in labor contracts. Now, some are taking aggressive steps to pare those benefits as well, including going to court.

In the past two years, employers have sued union retirees across the country. In the suits, they ask judges to rule that no matter what labor contracts say, they have a right to change the benefits. Some companies also argue that contract references to "lifetime" coverage don't mean the lifetime of the retirees, but the life of the labor contract. Since the contracts expired many years ago, the promises, they say, have expired too.

Once the lawsuits are up and running, it only remains for the corporation lawyers (who for some reason have a better reputation these days than trahhhhhl lawyers) to wait for the retirees to give up, run out of money to fight with, or die.

Many of these retirees are skilled, middle-class laborers of the sort that once comprised much of the "Reagan Democrat" bloc. But there is little consolation to be gleaned from the fact that most of those who have cooperated with the dismantling of workers' protections will, eventually, get stung themselves. Because if guys like these aren't protected, even with a contract, eventually none of us will be.

BASEBALL LIKE IT OUGHTA BE. Hell no to video review for baseball.

For one thing, the game's gotten too damn slow already. Bad enough we got guys stepping out of the batter's box and fiddling with their gloves between every pitch. Add two or three breaks per game for umps to watch TV, and ballparks will have to start serving breakfast during the 7th-inning stretch.

Second, umpires are God (or at least Supreme Court justices) or they are nothing. You got to believe that they are standing tall on every call, even when they're wrong (unless one of the associate justices -- I mean line judges -- sets them straight). I don't want to see an umpire sheepishly trudging from the video booth to the first-base line to mumble "Upon further review..." Might as well let the players take swings at them, then.

And there are a dozen other reasons, all boiling down to I'm an old crank and I want players to wear baggy pants and have names like "Cap." Well, not really. But too much tech is too much tech, and baseball's threshold of too-much is lower than that of most other endeavors. Within a few years of this innovation, they'll be playing the game on a giant air-table and hitting the ball with their minds.

Bad enough we got this newfangled designated hitter foolishness.

THEY WILL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS BY OUR LOVE. From alleged mail to the National Review Online:

I agree that Arafat was a bad man, and when I heard he was dying, I was glad. But that fact in itself causes grief: that there would be someone so bad that I would wish him dead. I'm a Christian, and I believe Arafat's in hell right now, and that also makes me sad. He could have chosen differently and he and the world would have
been better off.

I can understand why this guy prefers Arafat dead to Arafat alive. But what's interesting is that he describes himself as a Christian.

Having been raised Catholic, I recall -- and still try to observe, as it makes good moral sense -- the eminently Christian principle that we should not judge any former humans to be in hell, or in heaven for that matter (excepting the saints and the beatified), because to presume to know the mind of God, whose judgement alone settles the matter, challenges our humility before him. (Initial caps on pronouns deleted due to apostasy.)

I realize that Catholicism is the Tiffany of Jesus cults, and that the downmarket variants based in our nation's backwaters may have sloppier standards. Still, how strange that a professed follower of the Prince of Peace would so cravenly offload the responsibilities implicit in an imitation of Christ! Instead, he just feels "sad" that he feels "glad" about the death of a man that was "bad." No idea there that cheering a man's death is something in itself to repent. Did it never occur to him to pray for Arafat's soul?

Even the old National Review, before its thorough debasement in recent years, would put "R.I.P." next to their death notices for people whom they clearly despised. Christian hypocracy? Well, yes, but of the nobler sort. Now they can't even muster that.

There's another little insight into the Values Voters.

THE PERSONAL IS THE POLITICAL, RIGHT-WING VERSION #34,711. Some guy responding to some other guy:

Of all the people I know who support this war, most of us have conversations like this with each other all the time:

"Why are the anti-war people so vicious and nasty?"

"Why are the anti-war people so irrational and hateful and smug?"

"How do we get through to them? They just won't listen!"

"Don't you get tired of being called a liar and a fascist? I sure do."

It reached a point for a lot of us that on election day, we were doing more than just saying "We want to re-elect George Bush." When we pulled that lever for Bush, we were also just plain saying "FUCK YOU!"

Guy also says he takes drugs. Man, I can't wait for the Sixties to be over.

I AM OUT OF TOUCH WITH AMERICA. This is Rene Zellweger after she "packed on the pounds" for the new Bridget Jones movie:



Packed on the pounds? She's fucking adorable.

But what do I know? I like Kim Novak too.

THE WOUND AND THE BALL. The most important high-level appointment of the month is Willie Randolph's. He has solid baseball (and New York baseball) cred, and he's smart, at least in interviews, and God knows all Mets fan welcome him and wish him well. But I can't help but think what might have been.

Former Met Wally Backman was in the hunt, at least fleetingly, and I was really hoping he'd get the job. When he went to the Diamondbacks instead, I was very interested to see what he'd do with them. He'd done well managing in the minors, and came into Arizona announcing that he would not rebuild the fallen D'backs, but win with them. This was classic Backman. He was the sort of player one expected to come into first spikes up: tightly-wound and no backing down. He wasn't generally a great batter or base-stealer, but in the Mets' championship year he hit .320 and he made pitchers nervous with his nervy, glaring, stretch-legged leads. I think he smelled victory and went after it like a hungry tiger. He was 5'9" and skinny and with his mustache and bellicose swagger reminded me of Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail.

Recently the Diamondbacks fired Backman after learning of his trailer-park history: domestic violence, drunk driving, bankruptcy. It may seem odd that his financial problems -- not a crime, at least not yet -- are in that mix until you recall how often the words "role model" come up in professional sports. I doubt very much anyone in the Arizona organization cares very much about Backman's character as such, but they seem to have serious concerns, as everyone seems to these days, about the appearance of impropriety. And so he was let go.

Do I care about his character? The question gives me pause. New York loved Billy Martin, by all accounts a seriously messed up guy -- but one who channeled his demons into baseball (when he was not sending them into his fists and drinking elbow) and won ballgames. Let us not forget that these are jocks we're talking about, and that those guys don't usually draw their inspiration from the same source as lyric poets. When most people do acid and smoke pot, they rhapsodize about trees; Bill "Spaceman" Lee mowed down batters and got into fistfights.

I never wondered before the revelations if Backman went home and belted his wife, and of course I don't approve and hope the anger management classes he had to take made him a less combative helpmeet, not to mention a more careful drinker/driver. But whether or not he's achieved a Phil Jackson sort of Zen enlightenment, I assume he'd still have something left over for baseball, and that in a tight game he'd run out and rip into an umpire over some stupid play in hopes of riling his team to victory. It's worked before, hasn't it?

This, I acknowledge, is a failing in my character. I should be wishing Backman a mellow old age, not casting him as Philoctetes. Baseball does that to me. Politics, too. I'm down for whatever it takes to get my team out the cellar.

GRACIOUS WINNERS DEPT. The Ole Perfesser observes that Maureen Dowd looks "like she's aged ten years" and "bitter." Must be a men's lib thing.

Speaking of chest-beaters, Matt Welch offers a sampling of recent winger hubris. (I suppose he left out some of the more imbecilic ones because, after all, he used to work the same room with the same "anti-idiotarian" schtick. But there'll be a lot of "I was in Switzerland at the time" over the next few years, so I figure why not forget and forgive.)

The baying of the Bushies is mildly amusing, but I'm still more interested in the glib rationalizations of the useful idiots. Michael Totten is still making "The Liberal Case for Bush." I absolutely cannot wait for his "The Liberal Case for Chief Justice Thomas."

Michele Catalano, meanwhile, momentarily turns her considerable nervous energy upon censorship. Her essay includes this nostalgic trope:

And it's not just ultra conservatives who want to shove their values down your throat. It comes from both sides. The PC left wants to obliterate passages from textbooks...

Just as the sight of a Coupe de Ville or a Model T fills my heart with warmth, it's reassuring to know that some simple souls are still fretting about Political Correctness in the Age of Jesusland. Republicans run everything, the MSM is discredited, the blogosphere is triumphant, but somewhere a Marxist is trying to replace "the Founding Fathers" with "the Framers" (and doing it for yucky women's-lib reasons, not good ones like when Robert Bork does it) -- we must be on guard!

Next week: how the atheists are trying to put a giant rock sculpture of "Tropic of Cancer" in the Kings County Courthouse.

BUSH'S BOHOS. I've been hearing a lot of stories lately, here and elsewhere, of hard-working, decent people of cosmopolitan tastes whose votes for Bush I am invited to respect.

These folks read The Onion, they go to the theatre (except when they don't like the director's politics, then they abstain -- hey, I guess my going to see Team America proves that Democrats have no moral center!), they listen to both C&W and indie rock (and would probably refuse to believe that I, an unrepentant Kerry voter, can appreciate and have even played in both C&W and indie rock bands), and all that good stuff.

But they couldn't vote for Kerry because he betrayed the Democrats' "old, Kennedyesque liberal ideals (anti-authoritarianism, tolerance of other Americans)" (while their vote for Bush was a vote "for the ideals that once formed the Democratic party’s base"). And because he demonized the rich, talked about his Vietnam service, etc.

They are full of advice for their ex-comrades, as are their readers, but while the readers' advice tends to be of the fuck-off-and-die variety ("No compromise with a collection of DEFEATISTS headed by Kennedy,Pelosi,Dean,fueled by Michael Moore insanity is acceptable... For one world view to prosper the other must wither and die"), the kinder, gentler Bush voters advise more in sorrow than in anger. In fact, some claim to have "more respect for Kerry than do many of the people who voted for him." (With respect like that, who needs contempt?) But there was all that "shameful hetero-bashing." How can you vote for a guy like that, much as you respect him?

And they allow as how they might vote Democratic sometime if Democrats become more Republican.

They all sound like perfectly reasonable people, and I appreciate the time they've spent telling me how reasonable they are. But my response was written long ago:

Yes, that's very pretty. I heard a story once. As a matter of fact, I've heard a lot of stories in my lifetime. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. "Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid," it'd always begin. Huh. I guess neither one of our stories was very funny.

Typical liberal me, invoking discredited Hollywood morality.

SHORTER JIM LILEKS. New York, I love you more than you'll every know. That is why I compare you to a woman babbling to herself in a public place.

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES. A very bright commenter to this site says my previous post is "snotty and condescending." Well, she certainly passes the reading comprehension test.

But I must respectfully (yes, I can do things respectfully) push back on this part of her response:

Kevin Drum has a good recent post on the stupidity of indulging in sneers at the expense of people whose votes we'll need next time out. Perhaps, living in NYC, you don't have much contact with any kind of cross-section of Bush voters; the ones you see on TV and quoted in the papers are no doubt selected for their colorful boobishness. Tho' I live in a blue area (SF Bay) I have dealings with many Bush voters, and while some are insufferable, others are fine people (and far from stupid). I don't understand why they vote the way they do; but I think they are reachable. For sure they are not contemptible.

First things first. I was raised in the Outland and know many outlanders. As with most people's generalizations, I here made an unstated but (among literate people, I would think) tacit exception for those people who do not fit the bill. That's why I said the flyover was "mainly... Jesus freaks and neo-Rotarians," rather than exclusively so. I mean, why should Chapel Hill suffer for the rest of North Carolina?

Now, I can understand why some people would want -- no, need -- to figure out why the Bush people voted the way they did. Take, for example, Democratic Party operatives or fans -- people who have faith, people who think that yes, dammit, the system can work. Their goal, and in some cases their livelihood, is to try and get some of those Bush folk to vote Democratic next time.

Snotty condenscension certainly won't work for that. So you have to have sit and talk to them, try to "reach" them, get to know their feelings -- whether in a tavern or in a focus group - to find a way to address their feelings the next time you run a candidate...

...who, if you really want to sway this crowd, will probably resemble Joe Lieberman. Except, of course, for the Jewishness.

Fortunately that ain't my job.

I do know why these guys voted the way they did. They're pissed/scared about gay marriage. They think rampaging deficits, disappearing job security, and an increasingly feudal relationship between boss and worker are all fine so long as Uncle Sam sends them a $300 tax rebate every so often. And they think John Kerry would do a worse job of the War on Whatever than the author of the Iraq catastrophe.

Now, there are all kinds of words you could use for people who think that way, and "Jesus freaks and neo-Rotarians" are among the more polite options. You should really be applauding my restraint.

This isn't a disagreement on political beliefs, this is a disagreement on the direction of up and down and the color of black and white. These people think that the marriage of homosexuals imperils their own marital vows, for Chrissakes. That's not a (harrumph, harrumph) issue on which intelligent people may disagree. That's lunatic bullshit.

And you can't talk that away. Kerry sold out so much on the gay marriage as to closely resemble Bush, and still the yokels waddled into town to vote against him because they knew he didn't mean it -- that he still had a soft spot for them queers. Despite the comical assurances of guys like Michael Totten that the Bush base comprises cosmopolitans such as themselves, anyone who's been paying attention over the past 20 years knows how the term "moral values" translates in this context. (You'll get a more honest assessment from Stanley Kurtz, who has no cool factor to defend, nor any latte-drinking pals to defend it to).

Meanwhile we have guys like the Ole Perfesser telling his congregation that Snarky Carboard Signs in San Francisco = Entire Democratic Party. If I spent the next four years knitting lace doilies for my Republican friends, if we all did, come election time Misha would post a picture of a guy in a gold Speedo holding a BUSH = HITLER sign and all the yahoos would come running again to vote down whatever variant of the gay menace is in fashion that year.

So fuck it. Politics is over this season. I'll just have to settle for the truth.

A HOUSE NEAR THE ZOO. Being a positive sort, I can come up with all sorts of silver linings:

• Inevitable "Who needs stem cells anyway?" article by Perfesser Reynolds.
• Fewer young men competing for jobs and women, thanks to Iran War and related draft.
• Economic collapse finally brings Manhattan rents down to affordable levels.
• Wider Second-Amendement franchise finally allows me the arsenal I need to take a few of the bastards with me during my final rampage.

And so on. While I can't say I'm happy with the results of the election, I'm not shattered. Hope springs eternal, but once you pass a certain emotional age, you learn not to lean on it too hard.

That Rove would roust enough rednecks out of the woods to put Bush over and establish several fag-free zones across the country was always a strong possibility, and when it came to pass it came not as a shock but as an unpleasant reminder that somewhere West of the Hudson there is a large land mass populated mainly by Jesus freaks and neo-Rotarians who are, by some ancient political accident, our fellow-countrymen. We have managed to insulate ourselves from most of their depradations pretty well; though we do have to send them far larger tax revenues than we ever get back, it is all in all a pretty good deal.

Of course, we may have to throw up a few more sandbags twixt them and us when Fred Phelps ascends to the Supreme Court or the Anti-Witchcraft Amendment sails through the new Congress, but let's worry about that later. For now we'll just return to our vantage point and continue taking notes for our natural history of Boobus Americanus. Our predecessor at that task, Mencken, when asked why he remained in a country whose citizens he considered imbeciles, replied, "Why do men go to zoos?" For those of us with functioning frontal lobes, there is always some amusement to be gleaned from even the most desperate of situations, so long as the wild animals are kept in their cages and the home to which we return after a day's entertainment is sufficiently far upwind of the smell.

LET'S GET PARANOID! Start vomiting before you start drinking -- TAPped is posting "voter suppression" updates from around this wonderful country of ours throughout the day. Or you can pick a state and worry about it: Ohio Voter Suppression News will suppress your appetite for sure. And then there's Florida Watch Out -- wait, that's actually a letter from some dude on a road trip to the Sunshine State ("I hope I see some titties!"). Well, that's kind of nauseating too.

And the dogs and hoses haven't even come out yet.

UPDATE. On a lighter note, Suburban Guerrilla is posting some lovely election-day stories. No, I can't vouch for their authenticity. But they are a nice alternative for those of you who are not poised with torches, waiting only for the cry of "Tilden or Blood!" to spring into action.

UPDATE II. I'll be too busy biting my nails. Blog's off till tomorrow. There'll still be plenty of election news then, I'm sure.

YOU KNOW, SOMEDAY THIS WAR'S GOING TO END. As mad as it has all seemed, the real madness starts in a few minutes in Dixville Notch and will continue for, oh, who knows how long.

It is eerie to see all the supers, promos, and ads for toll-free voter help lines, which, circumstances strongly imply, are to be availed when black-sunglassed thugs inform your poll workers, "This man/woman is a felon/illegal alien/Canadian/dead person, have him/her fill out a provisional ballot which will mysteriously turn up in a landfill seven weeks later." Electoral fraud has a long and distinguished history in this country, but I can't remember a time when it was so much and so widely discussed before a national election.

I have some dark thoughts about this, but let us, as they say, give the system a chance and hope that the swarms of lawyers, observers, and operatives out there will mainly serve to intimidate each other rather than voters. I take comfort from this story (found at Atrios) involving some bollocksed Daytona Beach ballots: "When the error was discovered Monday, representatives from both parties were notified. Both sides then witnessed the removal of the ballots and their storage in the vault. The canvassing board will meet Monday to discuss how to recount the ballots."

Which will be accomplished, one hopes, under public scrutiny, with no bourgeois rioters allowed to disrupt the process. If they are, though, we'll all know about it sooner than last time.

The early warnings we've received wrack the nerves, true, but forewarned is forearmed. This time, the whole world is indeed watching.

KEEP GRANDPA AWAY FROM THE KEG. Newsday reports:

[Novelist Tom] Wolfe, known for his trademark white suits, has a new novel out, "I Am Charlotte Simmons," about youthful hedonism on a college campus.

Wolfe said he went to campuses including Stanford, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and the University of Florida in Gainesville and attended fraternity parties as part of his research.

"Very few of the students had any idea who I was," he says. "I was so old, and I always wore a necktie -- I must have seemed somewhat odd to them."

I'm sure Wolfe was just taking in the lingo and day-to-day manners, but I would really like to think he was seeking out examples of "youthful hedonism":

"That young lady seems to have passed out. Is one of you going to have non-consensual sex with her?"

"I'm just resting my eyes. Jason, doesn't your grandfather have a hotel room or something?"

"He's not my grandfather! Mr. Wolfe, we're trying to study, please stop bothering us."

"Don't mind me, I'll just take a few more notes and head off to the Hilton. (Pause) Has anyone a dose of Ecstasy?"

"No."

"Ah well. (Pause) That detergent bottle would make an excellent shotgun. Has anyone a bit of weed?"

"No."

"Would you like some?"

SHORTER JIM LILEKS. I show my confidence in the Republican cause by demanding concessions from little children before I give them candy.

ANOTHER MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Redstate.org was created to effect, according to its mission statement, "the construction of a Republican majority in the United States. We hope to unite serious, innovative, and accomplished voices from government, politics, activism, civil society, and journalism to participate in this work." Let's see what they're up to in the closing days of the 2004 campaign.

"Erick" challenges the ancient myth that the Washington Redskins' pre-election performance decides the fate of the incumbent. "Well, what if the rule tracks with the popular vote winner?" asks Erick. "If so, shouldn't Bush win? After all, Gore won the popular vote last time." He cites Ramesh Ponnuru, and later provides a thoughtful update ("Let's destroy the rule"). He is also cheered by a Bush endorsement from the New York Daily News, which he perhaps believes will deliver our notoriously divided swing state to the President, and muses at great length on the justice of the red vs. blue designation of states. "Given the flirtation of the left with communism, however," says Erick, "I suspect some on the right will think it only fair to make the Dems red." He adds, "If there is something out there you think I need to pick up on, please email me at msnbc-at-erickerickson-dot-org." The temptation is great.

Neil Cavuto recently said on-air that Osama bin Laden was all-but-endorsing Kerry. "California Yankee" approaches the story from this novel angle: "Kerry Campaign Threatens Fox News."

A Democratic operative predicts a Kerry victory "if every vote is allowed to be cast, and every vote is counted," from which Pejman Yousefzadeh infers that Democrats presume "some kind of divine right to be in charge." A commenter adds, with apparent wistfulness, "In most other countries, tanks would roll in the streets to keep Kerry out of the White House."

"streiff" says Kerry isn't a regular guy ("born to privilege," he scoffs -- then, perhaps remembering the pedigree of his own candidate, adding, "and who has assiduously married his way to even more privilege"). He relies for confirmation of his insight on a typically scabrous New York Post article. There is some discussion of an incident in which Kerry's motorcade failed to stop and greet supporters, and the absence or presence of snow on that occasion. It makes for scintillating reading, and if those of you so inclined would be so kind as to fax it to Bush headquarters in Ohio, the President's reelection is all but assured.

Site founder Tacitus has not been seen in several days, and is presumed to monitoring the treatment of Bush/Cheney lawn signs somewhere east of the Brazos.

Thank God the creators of alicublog had the foresight not to promise you folks anything more than a few laughs. Come to think of it, we didn't promise you that, either. Damn, we're really smart.

UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. Today's episode of "My Liberal Friends" comes from Roger L. Simon:

The people had come together through our children -- we were all parents from the same school -- and the kids played in the next room while we ate, drank and talked. Naturally, the subject of the election came up and I decided -- maybe it was the vodka -- to let it rip and say I was voting for Bush. One woman shrieked at the top of her lungs. The others just looked at me in incredulity.

I don't think it's bragging to say I knew more than these people about politics. (I have to -- I am the one putting out opinions in public.) But that didn't stop me from shrieking back at the woman. Others joined in and it became for a few moments a battle of who could yell the loudest. But after a bit it quieted down and they stared at me curiously.

Maybe it was the vodka, though it sounds more like 'shrooms. One also wonders if the dining room furniture was padded.

The Simon report is of course of a piece with other such narratives, and includes the obligatory narrator's assurance that his opponents are all stupid ("Their view of the world was heavily influenced by the Six O'Clock News, a Dan Rather vision of reality" -- why, they've probably never even heard of Mark Steyn!). Still, we might give Simon's more credence than others. It happened in Hollyweird, after all.

IF I HAD KIDS THIS HALLOWEEN... ...well, maybe I wouldn't even. (Hat tip: Dorian.)

SHO' NUFF. Surreptitiously kicking the Stroh's bottles under his couch, Jonah Goldberg offers an alternate explanation for his irrational exuberance:

I can't shake the feeling that one of the reasons Bush might be underpolling is that he's underpolling. Besides from all the technical stuff, I suspect that a small fraction of Americans might be embarrassed to admit that they're voting for Bush. All of Hollywood and elite media say you're a fool or a fascist to vote for Bush. Isn't it possible that a handful of Americans don't want to tell a stranger that they're voting for the candidate all the sophisticates call a cowboy-dunce-warmonger?

"Zebediah! Ole Judge Smoke sez the whole district done gone fer Bush! That means yew musta voted fo' him too."

"Shore did, Clem, an' ah'm plumb glad to hear it, cuz if Skunk Holler goes fer Prezident Bush, the nation is sho' to follow! Yee-haw!"

"But, Zebediah, you-all said you wuz votin' fo' Kerry. Yew tole it to that poll-takin' feller, too, jes' afore we strung him up."

"Ah gotta be honest with you, Clem. I was jes' afeard you-all would think ah was a cowboy-dunce-warmonger."

"Why, Zebediah Beauregard Crump, wherevah did you get such a idear?"

"Wahl, when I went up t' the county seat to get mah young-uns immunizzizzized, they was magazines an' newspapers all ovah the place talkin' 'bout how Prezident Bush was in cahoots with this feller Halley Burton. Now, I lahks Halley Barbour fine, but the way they talked about this here Halley Burton, he seemed a mite oily. An' then ah had some time on mah hands while the young-uns was gettin' immunizzizzized, so went to take in a movin' pitcher, an' it was all about how Prezident Bush was a Ay-rab, an' yew know ah don't lahk them no-how ever since Cousin Zeke come back fum Prezident Bush's Daddy's war all tetched in the haid."

"Wahl, why did you-all vote fo' Prezident Bush then?"

"Shoot, Clem, ah didn't believe them movies an' magazines no-how -- you know ah gits all mah news fum Perfesser Reynolds' website -- but ah started to feel ashamed-like o' mah Prezident, an' ah started havin' dreams where this Frenchman was laughin' at me an' hittin' me with a big loaf a' bread. Ah wuz afraid you-all would think ah was unsophistercated."

"Yuh crazy galoot! Come on, let's cel'brate this heah victory proper, by whaling tar outta some funny-boys!"

(Cue Flatt & Scruggs)

IN CASE OF POTENTIAL DEFEAT, BREAK OUT CULTURE WAR. As the end draws nigh, some conservatives who had heretofore been chest-bumping one another into a frenzy seem suddenly to have absorbed the message that Bush might lose. Alas, this results not in mind-blasts of Zen enlightenment, but in a more paranoid form of magical thinking -- the notion, as one commenter at Roger L. Simon's site put it, that "Kerry has about 30% true believers and should he win, the vote will have been delivered by the MSM."

Yes, the American people, whom conservatives credit with great wisdom whenever the tide is rolling rightward, become, once the tide turns, credulous dopes who cannot even be said to vote, as "the MSM" delivers their votes like so many Domino's pizzas.

I wonder if this idea that votes for Kerry are solely the result of media manipulation will become the countercharge du jour when Dems scream about the inevitable Republican vote fraud on Tuesday: "The votes of Times subscribers must be considered invalid due to media bias."

About the nuttiest such thing I've seen lately is, unsurprisingly, by Stanley Kurtz. In his commentary on the closely-divided state of our nation, he starts with a more-sorrow-than-anger tone: "But what does it say about the changes in this country that the battle is so close?" Yes, the sane reader of any persuasion might mutter sympathetically, yes, things sure have changed; though most of us will start tiptoeing gingerly away as Kurtz denounces "the fact that a candidate who called America’s soldiers war criminals and threw away his metals could get this close" to the Presidency.

What has caused this catastrophic change in the minds and politics of half our citizenry? You guessed it -- The Media! Kurtz tells a long anecdote about the treasonous Sulzbergers. Its relevance is not clear at first -- one guesses Kurtz just likes repeating such stories -- until he heaves this up: "The reason John Kerry and his 'global test' have even a ghost of a chance in this election is because Sulzberger and the folks who thought like him are now in charge of the media–and much of the rest of our culture... That what this election is all about."

One wonders what Kurtz expects from whatever narrow victory Bush might manage to achieve. Because, it would seem, the very fact that so many Americans disagree with the President is what makes it so desperately urgent to Kurtz that agreement -- on his terms -- be reached. So how will that treasonous 49+% be brought back into conformity with basic American values? Kurtz declines to say, but if it thinks it's so important, and that those who oppose the President are just brainwashing victims, one can imagine few methods he couldn't justify.

Winning big makes them insufferable, and winning small makes them paranoid. The only solution is to keep them from winning at all.