D Day (+1)

I'm trying to imagine the scene at Democratic Party Headquarters last night when they received confirmation that the House of Representatives was safely in their hands...

Howard Dean: "Holy Shit!"

Nancy Pelosi: "Wow! How did we do it?"

Dean: "Who cares? We won! Woo Hoo! Yyyyaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhh-aaaaa(gurglegurgle)!!!"

Pelosi: "Will you shut up? ...what are we supposed to do now???"

And so... the Democrats are victorious, as predicted. But the question remains: What will they do?

After years of ranting against Bush, after campaigning as the anti-Bush, will their policy continue to be to do the opposite of what Bush would do? Will they fight him to a stand-still and grind our legislative body to a halt? (Well, in fairness, it was already pretty pathetic).

Americans voted the Democrats in for a change, but not radical change, not spiteful change, and not total change. Americans voted Democrats in to restore a balance of power, to punish the complacent, incompetent Republicans, to send a signal to the President, and hope for something better.

So Ms. Pelosi, et, al...
Don't fly out of Iraq as quickly as you flew into power
Don't heighten the partisan tension
Don't abuse your power
Don't get caught up in scandal
Don't build bridges to nowhere
Don't settle scores
Don't bring up Abortion now
Don't bring up Stem Cells now
Don't bring up Gay Marriage now
Don't get bogged down legislating on social issues
Don't waste months investigating how we got into Iraq on faulty intelligence, that can come later
Don't spend any more money than Bush, which has been a god-awful lot of money

and

Do your jobs
Do remove America's lips from the teet of foreign oil
Do enact lobbying reform
Do reach across the aisle
Do finish the job in Iraq (and Afghanistan)
Do strengthen ties with our allies
Do grant the States the authority that is reserved to them. Let the States legislate on social issues, the Federal Government has bigger problems to worry about.

Do the right thing.