Patriotic Verklempt Cindy

Yesterday was such an emotional day. Deval Patrick, whom I've been excited about since I first heard him speak in a little house up the street two years ago, won here in Massachusetts. We (yellow dog Democrats and Progressives together) took back the House, and likely the Senate. Previously out of reach government measures (by the people and for the people) like meaningful health care reform, wage support, and appropriate social services for citizens, are once again possible.

At the same time, citizens of seven of these states voted to ban gay marriage(or uh-hem, "affirm traditional marriage,") by sometimes overwhelming majorities, rejecting the extension of for the people to include me in a meaningful way. (Except Arizona. Thank you Arizona)

President Bush proved his narcisicissm, again, when he changed the subject of the national discussion half-way through the day from the Democratic sweep to his firing of Rumsfeld. Like a child or addict/alcoholic, bad attention is better than no attention. In a move that had Rove's fingerprints all over it, the President manipulated all the pundits and talking heads away from focusing on the democratic sweep state by state, Representative by Representative, Senator by Senator, and the various progressive (or reactionary) ballot initiatives that passed/failed to a HUGE piece of the pie discussion about Rumsfeld and the President and what's next for the Secretary of State, with a mere powdered sugar sprinkling of how it was the democratic sweep that led to this (except the Pres. says it didn't). They managed to have very little discussion about the actual races, or the platforms that were attached to them.

I attended a meeting of DREs (fabulous people) halfway across the state, and so listened to the radio for nearly 3 hours, switching between Rush Limbaugh and Air America's Al Franken. Something of a silly decision. Rush bellowed, "It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better folks," and Al didn't. He made noises about crowing, but didn't really crow.

When I got home, I checked out the television news networks. NECN, our local northeast cable news, stayed with the politics of the races, as did CNN. MSNBC and FOX switched their pundit focus and spent the majority of the time discussing the Rumsfeld resignation, er, firing, er, leaving.

John Hall won again in New York. ( Orleans' Jon Hall) At the end of this long and politically emotional day, last night's Colbert Report turned incredibly touching after the interview (wherein John Hall and Stephen bantered about Democrats and Republicans crossing the aisle) when John and Stephen did an Amazing duet of the Star Spangled Banner. Not Carnegie Hall amazing, but contextually amazing. (update at noon: the clip from YouTube is now below.)

And here's the funny thing, one might even say the illogical, unscientific, irrational thing that crankycindy finds irritating. Even though it was fake united-across-the-aisle-ness, the symbology of it totally got to me and I choked up and actual tears ran down my face.

As of now, 8 am EST, last night's clips aren't up yet at the above link, but I hope that they will put it up. Otherwise dear readers, check your tv listings, Comedy Central repeats Colbert a couple of times throughout the day. (I know at least at 8:30 pm EST.) It's worth turning away from Survivor while they count the votes to catch it there at the end of the show.

Let me know if it was the singing that was honestly touching and patriotic, or if I was just overwrought and overtired and therefore suseptible to silly sentimentality.