Mega woot.

Sarah Palin, your fifteen minutes are UP. Mrs. "What magazines do I read? All of them!" can trot on back to Alaska and be stupid on her own time. What a relief that America finally turned away from voting in "people I'd like to share a beer with." Eight years of that good ol' fashioned hometown charm, punctuated by spoonerisms and malapropisms and general bungling, seems to have actually had an effect. Maybe - shocker - we can now think about electing smart people, not just people who act cute and might be fun to hang out with.

On the way out of our polling center, I asked Clark to give me an "O" for Obama.

Back in Bush v. Kerry, the electoral map went 286 to 252, Bush v. Gore was 271 to 266. Both times we had to endure the braying jackasses of the GOP calling that a "mandate from the people." I wonder what we get to call 338 to 156?

I like John McCain. I would have liked to see him go up against Clinton rather than Dole. Back when McCain was in his, what, sixties? I like seeing McCain show visible discomfort when the morons in his core constituency show up at rallies to chant "kill." You can't mask that kind of revulsion (well, Palin can), and it showed McCain knew his followers were trouble. He got to do it again tonight when the classiest Young Republicans in Arizona booed him whenever he mentioned Obama.

Who can Republicans blame? Bush. Watch how quickly they start bailing on that mental midget. Their former hero, the untouchable cowboy, drove millions away from the Republican party. He drove me away. I helped get him in to his first term. I'm still a registered Republican. But when he was tested, he failed. And even though the failure was obvious and brutal, there was no swaying him. Here we are, seven years after 9/11 and he never caught Osama bin Laden. Instead he faked an attack on Iraq, fomented hate and racism, and abused our standing in the world.

It wasn't just Bush's failure. It wasn't just the orchestrated face-saving of his toadies and lapdogs. It was the failure of the press, of Democrats, of all of us. We allowed a callous, brainless frat boy to run our country. Unbelievably, Bush's tenure exposed a truly idiotic section of America who still thinks that the United States should ignore the rest of the world, march in heedless of warning and devoid of plans, hide facts and blur truth as long as it all ends well, and just generally strut around like the toughest kid on the block.

Bullshit to that. How incredible that we somehow managed to shout down those lunatic bullyboys.

President Obama has one hell of road to mend, before he can even take us down it. Maybe he can fix our image. Maybe he can end the occupation of Iraq. Maybe he can keep taxes down and end our dependence on foreign oil. Odds are that he won't... that politics will trundle on as usual, heaving and brooding. Obama has inherited quite a mess and will no doubt generate quagmires of his own. They all do.

But the point is that we sent a message. Today we decided that we no longer want to be known as the jerkiest country around. That we're tired of the politics of old white men. That we're not afraid - in fact we're proud - to have an African-American as our leader.

I'm so glad this is a blowout. No debate. No recounts. This is a mandate.

And now we celebrate via LittleBigPlanet: