So no one told you life was gonna be this way.
Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s D.O.A.
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear,
When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year,

Chorus

I’ll be there for you!
(When the rain starts to pour)
I’ll be there for you!
(Like I’ve been there before)
I’ll be there for you
(‘Cause you’re there for me too)

What a fine group.

TNOYF made the video

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I was going to do a serious post on the re-election of William Jefferson in Louisiana until I read the closing paragraph of this AP story.

Before the bribery scandal erupted, Jefferson had climbed to the pinnacle of the Democratic Party. He was a confidant of former President Bill Clinton.

That’s the pinnacle? Man, that’s just too funny.

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Who had this to say?

“The American people have put their feet on the right path by … realizing their president’s betrayal in supporting Israel”

[...]

“So they voted for something reasonable in the last elections,”

[...]

Describing George W. Bush as “the most stupid president” in U.S. history.

[...]

“We call on the lame duck (Bush) not to hurry up in escaping the same way the defense minister did,”

[...]

“They are getting ready to leave, because they are no longer capable of staying,”

Any guesses? The (semi)surprising answer below.

Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in a new audio tape on Friday to be winning the war in Iraq with 12,000 fighters mobilized in the wartorn country and praised the Republicans’ defeat in U.S. midterm elections as “reasonable”

“The al-Qaida army has 12,000 fighters in Iraq, and they have vowed to die for God’s sake” said Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, in an audio tape made available on militant web sites.

Also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, al-Muhajir became the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by the U.S. military in June.

Though the voice on the tape identified itself as al-Masri, there were no means to independently verify this. (Source)

Did your stomach just take a flip? Mine did.

Others commenting:
Stop The ACLU
Iowa Voice
The Strata-Sphere
The Bullwinkle Blog
Sister Toldjah
The Florida Masochist

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Coffee falls into the stomach … ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop … the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink… ~ Honore de Balzac

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) The New Guru, Same As The Old Guru — “Now that the Democrats have won their Congressional majorities, they now have to govern for the first time in 12 years. They made a lot of campaign promises, especially regarding Iraq, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus wants to make sure those get honored. To that end, they have turned to a new guru on war — one who led Democrats to a massive defeat via his own defeatism in 1972:”

Blogs for Bush (Mark Noonan) Democrats Win, Desire to Surrender — “The 60 members of Congress McGovern is meeting with are the Congressional Progressive Caucus, so called because Congressional Communist Caucus didn’t poll as well in focus group testing. These 60-odd lefties are the worst of the worst – the real moon-bats; the people who really do think that President Bush caused 9/11 to happen so we could go to war for Big Oil and The Jews.”

In The Bullpen (Chad Evans) MI5 Head: Islamic Radicalization in England Growing — “The head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, told an audience at Queen Mary College there are currently 30 top-priority terrorism investigations underway and there is an increased Al Qaida threat in England including an 80 percent rise in casework since January. Manningham-Buller also detailed teenagers were being recruited in England to “carry out suicide attacks and will use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons if they get the chance.” ”

Don Surber Mehlman out, Steele in — “Like Mehlman, Steele comes off as an articulate man who can hold his own against anyone. Mehlman will best be remembered for scaring off that loudmouth Dr. Howard Dean, who was so scared that he twice refused to appear on “Meet the Press” with Mehlman. If Tim Russert had any integrity, he would have told Dr. Dean, no joint appearance, then no airtime at all.”

ScrappleFace (Scott Ott) Chafee May Quit GOP, Divorce Britney Spears — “The dual announcements shocked both the political and entertainment worlds as leading experts in both realms had not previously known of either relationship that Sen. Chafee plans to sever.”

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If it wasn’t for coffee, I’d have no discernible personality at all. ~ David Letterman

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) Herding Cats, Or Blue Dogs — “Now that the Democrats have won control of both chambers of Congress, their real challenge has begun — big-tent governing. The Democrats took control by nominating center-right candidates to replace Republicans, and now they will have to find ways in which to unify their caucus to get their issues advanced. As the departing Republican leadership can tell them, it’s not as easy as it looks:”

Don Surber Voters return the crooks to power — “In punishing Republicans for profligate spending, voters kicked out the amateur crooks and replaced them with the pros.

Hang on to your wallet. This is going to be a bumpy ride”

Right Wing News (John Hawkins) Don’t Throw John Bolton Under The Bus — “Why shouldn’t Bush come out and say that Bolton has done a fine job of fighting corruption, standing up for American interests, and making a real effort to try to reform an almost completely dysfunctional institution? Then, let the Democrats explain why we need to go along to get along at the UN. The truth is that the Democrats didn’t have any substantial reasons to oppose Bolton in the first place, it was all just knee jerk “oppositionalism”. Now that Bolton has proven himself at the UN for a while, they have absolutely no reason to vote against him other than to stick it to Bush.”

Blue Crab Boulevard Schools Of Thought — “There is the usual and expected – heck, it’s inevitable – soul searching and finger pointing going on in the Republican party and among those who lean to the right. Two major schools of thought are becoming evident early. In one, people are arguing that the Republican loss was a result of moving away from the center and becoming too conservative. The other is the mirror image of course; the Republicans abandoned too much of their conservative principles and tried to pander too much to the middle.”

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Just running on FOX News TV — Michael Steele has conceded in MD. More soon.

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Ah! How sweet the coffee’s taste is,
Sweeter than a thousand kisses,
Milder than sweet muscatel.
Coffee, coffee, I must have it,
And if someone wants to treat me,
Ah, my cup with coffee fill! ~ Johann Sebastian Bach (Koffee Kantate)

Blogs For Bush (Mark Noonan) A Great Time to be a Conservative Republican — “This is not to say that things will be easy – really kook-fringe Democrats, especially in the House, are committee chairmen, and they will go about being as kooky as we expect. We can expect an endless stream of Congressional investigations in to Bush Administration policies and the attempted criminalization of being a conservative. This will be rough to get through, but it can be overcome if we do one thing: be as conservative as we can be.”

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) Final Thoughts — “This is a big loss, and it will hurt the GOP and the Bush administration. Even if we do hold the Senate, we will have to find compromise candidates for the federal bench, and also look forward to more taxes and regulation. Free trade is a goner. The prosecution of the war on terror will get limited by a probable repeal of the Patriot Act, or at least an attempt to do so, and I’m very sure the Democrats will move to defund the operations in Iraq by a date certain in order to force a “phased redeployment”.

And that’s not even counting the myriad investigations that Democrats will launch against the Bush administration. Republicans will keep it from getting out of hand, but the Democrats will want to build enough damaging allegations to win again in 2008. ”

Blue Crab Boulevard Senate Down To The Wire — “One thing is for sure. Any conservative who complains in the future about the Supreme Court and its decisions better have voted in this election.

Or they are fooling themselves about how seriously they take politics or conservatism.”

Michelle Malkin Conservatism did not lose — “The GOP lost. Conservatism prevailed. “San Francisco values” may control the gavels in Congress, but they do not control America. Property rights initiatives limiting eminent domain won big. MCRI, the anti-racial preference measure, passed resoundingly. Congressman Tom Tancredo, the GOP’s leading warrior against illegal immigration–opposed by both the open-borders Left and the open-borders White House–won a fifth term handily. Gay marriage bans won approval in 3 states. And as of this writing, the oil tax initiative, Prop. 87–backed by deep-pocketed Hollywood libs, is trailing badly in California.”

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This post will contain tonight’s election blogging. Scroll down for updates (which may or may not have a time on them). The first exit polls are scheduled to be released in less than ten minutes. As Paul Harvey would say, “Stand By For News!”

Update (5:15) CNN — The first commentary on early exit polling: Asked which issues are extremely important — 42% Corruption; 40% Terrorism; 39% The Economy; 37% Iraq.

Most interesting to me was the the question asking if national or local considerations played a bigger roll, 62% said national while only 33% said local.

UPDATE (6:00) Cub Scouts — Back around 7:30

10:30 — I’ve been back for a while, but busy reading and watching rather than posting. Overall it’s been a night of few surprises. Several races such as Virginia look to go rather early into tomorrow morning before a definitive call can be made. I’m thinking of turning in now and getting up a bit earlier than normal and go from there.

11:10 — FOX TV is reporting that the WaPo has withdrawn their initial call of a win for Cardin in MD. Steele is leading the reported vote. This race is far from over.

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Leave it to the bear. The Truth Laid Bear is serving up a very special election coverage page with links to those who are blogging the election, and graphic representations of where things stand. Click on the banner to take a look. The fun starts in about 4 hours.

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It’s an old joke. One you’ve probably heard before. Still, it illustrates my general attitude as well as my outlook on today’s elections:

Two young boys were as different as could be when it came to their outlook on life. One little boy was always pessimistic, never thinking anything good was going to happen. His brother had the exact opposite view, always positive, always looking on the bright side.

One Christmas their father decided to put them to the test. The pessimistic son came into the family room on Christmas morning and found every possible gift he could have asked for. As he opened each one he would make remarks such as, “this is great, but it’ll probably just break.”

Where his brother’s pile of gifts should be there was only a pile of manure. Their father was mystified when the optimistic son saw the manure and a wide grin broke out on his face. Before he could ask why he was smiling, the boy started darting around the house. He flew outside, circling the house on the run.

When their father was finally able to catch the boy he stopped him and asked, “Why are you running around? What are you looking for?”

The boy explained, “With a pile of manure like that there’s bound to be a pony around here somewhere!”

In just a few hours we’ll know it there is, indeed, a pony around here somewhere.

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