Sweep

I've been watching the election coverage on MSNBC with Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman and the whole all-star panel. The Dems have swept the House and are on the brink of taking the Senate; it's down to final counts or recounts in Montana and Virginia, both of which the Dems have claimed as victories. I haven't written any columns in a while and haven't put any political thoughts on this blog, but I'll make an exception now. This is a mandate to deal with reality in Iraq; to restore habeas corpus and the rule of law that were eliminated in the name of fighting terror; to force some fiscal sanity; to finally investigate and oversee the Administration as Congress is supposed to do; to end the disgusting use of religious fundamentalism for political mobilization; to get rid of Rumsfeld; to create a visionary energy policy and investigate the alliances that devised the old one; to constructively engage Iran and North Korea; to remove the neocons from the stage of policy debate; to actually have rational policy debates instead of mindless partisan hackery; to reform the lobbying system; to end the reckless hubris of Bush and Cheney's blindly ideological Unitary Executive structure. And so much more, but that would be a nice start... maybe after the Dems have succeeded in their initial legislative agenda (some of which I disagree with, but such is the way it goes), they can finish the job that Mccain-Feingold started by banning 527's and establishing a system of voluntary public financing (via fund-matching) of elections. Then we can have, in 2008, not only results to be proud of, but campaigns to be proud of as well, and maybe, just maybe, amazing things will start happening.
It's a lot to hope for, but hope won tonight, so it's no time to start giving up.