On the Supreme Court.

So I really, really, really want to be one of those people who approaches something like the impending battle over the next Supreme Court justice with gusto and plans to charter a bus to Washington, D.C. and organize a demonstration. But I have to say that in the aftermath of the last presidential election, I feel more than disheartened. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, anyone can admit that when the majority spoke, it spoke rather overwhelmingly for a set of social and political ideas that garners fierce loyalty on one side and fierce opposition on the other. It never feels good to be on the losing side of anything, but the hardest thing for me and a lot of other liberals to come to terms with was that at least in 2004, the system worked. Can't say the same for 2000, I think, but this time the principles of republicanism appear to have done their appointed task. That's the hardest part -- realizing that you didn't lose because there was trickery or fraud but because more people wanted what you didn't want. They won, fair and square (so it seems).

The rest of us have to content ourselves with being the vocal opposition until the next election rolls around. But I have to admit that I face that task with profound apathy. Maybe because I so wanted a new president, and as I watched the early returns on election night, it was so close that I could see it happening. Maybe one of the most serious consequences of Kerry's defeat (a distant second, of course, to the prolonging of the occupation of Iraq) is that too many of us, accustomed to defeat, will let one party have its way. No matter who's in the White House, single-party rule is never a good thing.