Well, that was fun. As a Republican myself—at least I would be if they had registration by party in the Commonwealth of Virginia—I don’t mind admitting that I was glad to see the large swing to the Republicans in the recent mid-term elections even though its practical effects are likely to be few and problematical. There are still no veto-proof majorities—and in the Senate no majority at all—with which to “turn the ship around” (as the gop’s Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, put it). The failure to do so is very likely to result in the Republicans’ having to shoulder a share of the blame for whatever may still be wrong with the way the country is being governed in 2012, when both they and the President come up for re-election. But even if their triumph had been unambiguous, the best thing about it would have been the anguish of the media at seeing all their hopes for forty years of progressive dominance (J. Carville) and the consequent Death of Conservatism (S. Tanenhaus) come to nothing. And better even than that are the intellectual contortions the media have been going through in order to explain away this otherwise inexplicable deviation of “history” from its pre-ordained progressive course.

I do hope I’m allowed to say all this in The New Criterion—a publication which is, needless to say, not affiliated with any political party. Mr. Keith Olbermann found what price was to be paid even by opinion-mongers such as he