In these grand, historic times, I’d like to begin our weekly meeting of the humor-loving minds with a quote from one Nelson Muntz of The Simpsons fame. If Mr. Muntz was here to celebrate with us today, I think it’s safe to assume that he would agree with my choice of sentiment…
Simply put, “Ha ha!”
Seriously, what a week it’s been, eh?! After countless excruciating months filled with bailouts and plumbers and obnoxiously sexy winking that would’ve been even sexier had we not been fairly certain that she’d have happily fed us to the fierce and unrelenting wildlife of the great state of Alaska given the chance, it all came down to one vote. Not the multitude of voting counts and recounts that the Bush administration has grown accustomed to, but a single, solitary vote in which the people of this great country came together and as one, proudly exclaimed into the night, “You didn’t seriously think that we were going to elect The Old Man and the P, did you?!”
And just when I was starting to have doubts in the electoral aptitude of our country – can we, the people, stand up and prevent a conservative windfall with antlers from turning the White House into a weekend hunting shack where the red power suits are the only thing we’re more dependent on than that sweet, sweet, Texas tea? Yes, we can…
I know that deep down, we’re all going to truly miss Sarah Palin … miss her like the bully in high school who picks on you for three semesters before finally getting transferred over to the Correctional Learning Center where he’s the scrawny, weakling of the bunch; miss her like the latest horrible creation to come out of McDonalds’ labs that pushes the McRib off the menu yet again; miss her like a mommy alligator who misses her young shortly after eating them … that is, until she then spots their grade school buddies just off the horizon, alone and looking particularly scrumptious.
It’s almost enough to make you feel bad for John McCain because had he not made the single worst blunder of the season by choosing said lipstick-laden bulldog as his running mate, he might’ve stood a better chance against the We’re Not Total Idiots crowd. But then again, while saucy Sarah certainly monopolized the camera time from that fateful moment when her name was introduced to us on August 29th forward, at least McCain can still rest assured that at least he’s still got a chance to enjoy a few more years in his political career, whereas Palin will probably be lucky to land a position as Assistant to the Regional Diplomat for Russia once her term as governor has ended in a couple of years…
But I don’t entirely want to dwell on the plight of Palin on this day because today is a happy day. In fact, yesterday and the day before were also considerably happy days, in addition to even the final hour or so of the day before that. By my watch, we’re going on about 57 consecutive hours of happiness to date, which in comparison to the Bush administration’s record 43 minutes of happiness before we all figured out that those “economic surplus checks” were going to save us from precisely bupkis, I think is pretty darned impressive! If anything, this isn’t a time for being all down on the Republican party for presenting us with the most unqualified, albeit entertaining, electoral contenders since Michael Moore urged us all to Vote Ficus! (the tree, that is…) back in 2000.
I’d like to urge the American public who voted for President Elect Barack Obama to spend the next few weeks and months as we prepare for this administrative transition doing what is only proper after one has endured some eight years of executive empty-headedness – gloat. Whether you’re in line at the grocery store and overhear somebody saying how Sarah Palin would’ve made a swell Vice President if the media just hadn’t been so hard on her or if you find yourself stuck behind a minivan plastered with so many McCain / Palin ‘08 stickers that it looks like the You Betcha Mobile, don’t be afraid to revel in the glorious fact that you did your part on Tuesday to help derail their crazy train. I mean it – really rub it in good about how McCain won’t be enjoying any Presidential Prunes next year or how if pretty girl Palin still wants to see the inside of the White House, she’ll just have to go ahead and take the tour like everybody else…
These are times of rejoicing and celebration, and what better way to bask in the glory of change than by flaunting said happiness in the faces of all those who’ve suggested a more conservative manner of living incessantly for seemingly as long as we can remember at this point?! The campaign trail has been a long and arduous road, filled with more potholes in the form of acorns and plumbers than a midwest highway after an unusually hard winter, but those times are behind us now – quite triumphantly so, I might add. Now is the time for gloating, rubbing it in their faces, and shouting out loud from the hilltops … because if the numbers had swung the other way, you can bet your $15,000 power suit that they’d be doing the same thing to us! Hell, that’s what they’ve been doing for the last three months before the election itself even happened anyways, so there’s nothing wrong with a bit of gentle jeering in the thrill of victory to celebrate the end of nearly a decade of clumsy Commander-in-Chief-i-ness.
We’ve waited a long eight years for this, America – now get out there and gloat your hearts out!