Ever the optimist here are 15 silver linings to accompany that cloud of doom on the horizon, some tongue in cheek, others, not so much....

1) Hillary Clinton won't be in the White House.

2) John McCain won't be either.   

3) Neither will Bush. And we'll have President who can, you know, talk, though I am straining to notice any increase in coherence.  

4) The first and third most liberal Senators, Obama/Biden will no longer be in the Senate.

5) John McCain will be. 

6) The ocean's will begin to cool, global warming halted, even though it began collong around 1999.

7) The world will like us, really, really, like us in view of our return to "realistic" foreign policy, you know, the one patterned on Junior High school girls peer pressure and quest for popularity.

8) Terrorism is over. The preferred candidate of Ahmadenijad, Hezzbolah, Al Quaeda, Chavez, and Castro won.  Now they'll all want to be friends right?

9) The Bush hate industry will collapse. A bevy of pundits, and Air America, who have built their careers on destroying Bush will be out of work, if they're not too busy agitating for post-term impeachment, war crimes trials and such.   

10) Mitch McConnell is the most powerful Republican left standing.  Watching him Mitch-slap a newly energized cabal of liberal Senators into submission promises high entertainment.  It's a pity the House doesn't have a filibuster.

11) Republicans maybe, finally, learned the hard lesson of governing like Democrats.  I voted for the Goldwater Texan Bush but got the Rockefeller Connecticut Republican.   

12) Sarah Palin singlehandedly marginalized 60's/70's establishment feminism and redefined it for the 21st century.     

13) A handful of east coast conservative elites helped to shift the strength and future of the movement away from Manhattan and Washington.

14) While Republicans limp off into the wilderness to lick their wounds the best argument for their return will be an unrestrained left liberal congress White House partnership.

15) Racism is over. With big thinkers like Jacob Weisberg / Slate, Susan Estrich, Jack Cafferty/CNN, Krugman / NY Times, among others assuring us the only reason Obama could lose is racism the corollary has to be true as well, he won so we must not be racist.

That's about all the hopeyness I can muster.