Bush’s White House has finally done something I agree with: they’re replacing Attorney General John Ashcroft, who announced his resignation today.

It’s about friggin’ time.

An excerpt from his resignation letter: “The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.” In other words, Mission Accomplished. The mind boggles.

Ashcroft has been at or near the top of the list of things I don’t like about the Bush administration almost from Day One. I’m sure I won’t like his replacement — he will be appointed by W, after all — but I really don’t think they can come up with a worse candidate than Ashcroft was. He’s been the worst, most ethically corrupt AG we’ve had since John Mitchell under Nixon. Things can only get better without him. Our civil liberties are safer already.

You can tally this entry as an endorsement of a Bush White House action. It’s about as much of an attaboy as they’ll ever get out of me.

I’m pretty down about the results of the election yesterday, but I’ve decided the Lunchroom here isn’t going to become the bitter-angry-disenfranchised-liberal-guy blog and I’m not going to continue to rant and rave against the administration the way I did leading up to the election. I think there’s better things I can do offline to effect change than to bluster here in what is basically preaching to the choir. So I’m closing the lid on the festering corpse of Election ’04 and moving on and I won’t mention it again. (Probably. Maybe.)

But as Beth pointed out to me recently, I do like having the last word. So here’s my last word on the subject — and the words aren’t even mine, they’re something I clipped off Usenet. But, boy, do they capture my thoughts well:

The American people have spoken, this November 2nd, and here’s what they had to say:

1. We hate fags.
2. We don’t care who bombed us, as long as we have an excuse to kick some
foreign ass.
3. We don’t care how many people have to die kicking that ass, as long as rich
corporations get fat rebuilding contracts to make them richer.
4. We don’t care about our civil rights. When Patrick Henry said “Give me
Liberty or Give me Death, he had it all ass-backwards.
5. We want people who aren’t rich enough to afford top of the line health
care to suffer and die, no matter how hard they work.
6. We want to force those people to have babies who will also suffer and die.
7. We hate muslims.
8. We hate intellectuals.
9. We hate lawyers, especially ones who defend the poor or the weak.
10. We believe anyone who is not a Christian is going to Hell.
11. We believe that cannot happen soon enough.
12. We believe our leader rules by Divine Right and is answerable to no one
but God.
13. We hate women, unless they are barefoot and pregnant and follow their man’s orders like a dutiful wife.
14. We believe you can go to war on, and physically kill, ideas.
15. We believe even when our leaders lie to us, and even when they do it
because it is in their interest and not ours to do so, that it is some kind of
“accident” and not a mistake or deception.
16. We believe that even when our leaders lie to us, we should pretend what
they are saying is true.
17. We believe the rich should get richer, the poor should stay poor, and
everyone in between should pick a side.
18. We believe that this is a Christian nation. If you want to believe
something else, we’ll humor you, but you should know that the truth is that
there is one true Christian God running the show.
19. We believe things are going great, despite all evidence to the contrary.
20. We will continue to believe this to the bitter end.

Now go donate some money to the Love Ride. Because, you know, they hate charity of any kind, so this is one more way to be the better person.

Great. Four more years of this chimp. Nicely done, America.

I am disgusted with 51% of the American public. They have rewarded mediocrity, approved running the biggest deficit we’ve ever seen, want to be spied on and have their Constitutional rights suspended and/or violated, approve of preemptive wars against countries that have not attacked us, want Iran and N. Korea to have nuclear weapons, don’t want the “war on terror” to actually fight terrorists or employ meaningful safeguards at home, blah blah blah blah blah.

I think it was Will Rogers who once said “People generally get the kind of government they deserve.” Well, welcome to it.

Six states are busily approving initiatives and amendments to their constitution banning gay marriage today. This makes me sad.

I used to be opposed to gay marriage until I sat down and examined my own feelings about it and realized that my opposition was rooted in emotional and moral judgements fostered by my Catholic upbringing. I supported the idea of extending the same benefits married couples enjoy — insurance, property rights, etc — but I didn’t like the idea of Adam marrying Steve.

Then one day I set my feelings aside and looked at it without judgement and realized that I couldn’t think of a single rational reason why I should care one way or another how two people who love each other express that love. It’s between them and doesn’t affect me at all. In fact, it’s none of my business. So I changed my mind. And now that I’m an ordained minister, I wouldn’t think twice about presiding over their wedding if they asked me to. In fact, I’d be honored.

The whole argument and mindset against gay marriage is, I think, based on “icky-poo”. It’s knee-jerk prejudice, being uncomfortable with the thought of men kissing men (and more — eek!), it’s hating them for being different. In my mind, it’s exactly the same prejudice that made blacks second class citizens before the civil rights movement. That was wrong and so is this.

Calling this opposition “defense of marriage” is asinine. Hell, if marriage as an institution needs saving, it’s from the friggin’ straights. Can gays do any more to hurt the institution of marriage than straights are with their current 50% divorce rate or Britney Spears is with her revolving door to the annulment? If anything, I think maybe gays could teach us a thing or two.

And how does Adam and Steve exchanging vows weaken my marriage? Is Beth going to serve me with divorce papers when they say “I do”? How does it threaten the institution? Will marriage be completely gone by the time Zoe is old enough for it? Will we turn into a nation of singles bars? Please, spare me.

It’s prejudice, plain and simple. Why not let them marry? Why not let them share the same legal benefits Adam and Eve do? Your church can keep right on being narrow-minded and refusing to perform the ceremony for them — nobody’s trying to change that, but why not let the Elvis impersonator in Vegas marry them, or a justice of the peace? Or me?

They love each other and want to pledge their lives to one another. How can that be bad?

It’s still too close to call all over the damned place and it’s starting to smell like a repeat of 2000, but I have to say this:

I just saw a report on CNN of voting in Philadelphia that showed lines of people snaking out into and around the parking lot in the dark and in the cold. It makes me proud as hell to see people stepping up like this. This is how voting should be every time there’s an election.

The national news orgs are pissing me off; they’re only reporting exit polls on the six or so states where polling has closed, states that were expected to (and looks like did) go to Bush. Which I hope think is skewing the numbers.

With that in mind, here’s some exit poll numbers snagged from Wonkette:

6 p.m. exit polls — not internals.

K/B:
FL 51 49
NC 48 52
OH 51 49
Missouri 46 54
Ark 47 53
Mich 51 47
NM 50 49
LA 43 56
CO 48 51
AZ 45 55
Minn 54 44
Wisc 52 47
IA 49 49

These numbers make me happier.

For what it’s worth, rabid right attack dog/MSNBC host Joe Scarborough seems very subdued co-hosting their election coverage right now. He’s coming across as very dour, almost mournful. Makes me wonder if he knows something we don’t — something we’d like. Normally I want to punch him in the throat, but today he seems very down. Good.

CNN is calling it 56 Bush, 44 Kerry nationally at this point.

On the other hand, Zogby is predicting a Kerry electoral college landslide.

Again, from Slate, as of 3:15 pm PST:

“In the national exit poll, Kerry leads Bush 51-48. In Wisconsin he’s up by three and in Ohio and Florida he leads by one.”

The first east coast polls are closing in about 10 minutes and the new organizations will begin reporting their exit poll information then. I’ll let you know what they say…

From Slate:

Florida
Kerry 52
Bush 48

Ohio
Kerry 52
Bush 47

Michigan
Kerry 51
Bush 48

Pennsylvania
Kerry 58
Bush 42

Iowa
Kerry 50
Bush 48

Wisconsin
Kerry 53
Bush 47

Minnesota
Kerry 57
Bush 42

New Hampshire
Kerry 58
Bush 41

Maine
Kerry 55
Bush 44

New Mexico
Kerry 49
Bush 49

Nevada
Kerry 48
Bush 49

Colorado
Kerry 49
Bush 50

Arkansas
Kerry 45
Bush 54

Clipped from The Political Puzzle:

	 AZ  CO  LA  PA  OH  FL  MI  NM  MN  WI  IA  NH
Kerry	 45  48  42  60  52  51  51  50  58  52  49  57
Bush	 55  51  57  40  48  48  47  48  40  43  49  41

I’m loathe to jinx it, but I have to say things are looking good in the key battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.