Last Night's Blow-By-Blow

I never figured I'd start one of these things until I woke up this morning, in a country that had just re-elected George W. Bush, and had entirely too much I wanted to talk about.

I'm a dedicated Red Sox fan- it even comes through in the title of this site, which you may recognize if you waste your time reading a lot of baseball postings. And last night started out like a playoff game- a big, long playoff game, with 20 minutes between each inning and Wolf Blitzer talking to Larry King about God knows what. Neither of them had anything substantive to discuss, but somehow, they kept talking.

So, like a playoff game, it began in pleasant, celebratory fashion. I sat there with a bunch of my friends, eating pizza and agonizing every time Wolf Blitzer ran over to the CNN Projection Screen (you could hear the capital letters and bold face in his voice) and announced, in grandiose terms, that Kentucky had most certainly gone for Bush! And Vermont! This just in! Vermont's four people and 19 cows had definitely endorsed Kerry!

There was never a moment where I felt like things were going well; they just seemed to be a different shade of crappy. It wasn't that Florida and Ohio took until 4 a.m. to figure out who they were voting for; it was just that all the other states that were "in play" (more sports metaphors) seemed to be drifting into that sickeningly red column.

Jon Stewart was a momentary bright spot. The Daily Show has a remarkable capacity to cheer you up, or, in this case, make you grin halfheartedly as the tide of impending doom starts lapping around your toes. He was clearly as disgusted as the rest of us when the ugly numbers came in on gay-marriage referendums, and issued perhaps the most eloquent line of the night; "America is looking more and more like it did in a dream I had. A dream in which I wake up crying..."

After the Daily Show, however, life began to feel a lot more like it did during Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. People moved away from the TV, unable to bear witness to the blossoming horror. I didn't watch Die Hard 3 this time- and this time, there was no Game 4 to be played the next day, and no team of happy idiots to pull out the miraculous victory. This was it.

By 11:30, it was clear that Ohio was the only possible way John Kerry could win, and that hope was fading in slow, agonizing fashion. My girlfriend and I were alone with the TV, so we left her apartment to walk around the streets and try to understand how the country could actually re-elect George Bush. We meandered around a bit more, played video games and eventually fell asleep.

It felt like a different world when I left my apartment this morning. 95% of my friends have already commented to me that they're going to leave the country. Canada is the leader right now, with England right behind and Ireland pulling up a surprisingly close third.

The reason I'm starting this site is because I'm in the same boat as them- I want to leave any country that would re-elect George Bush- but on the other hand, it's still my country. And I think that if it could make a decision as horrendous as the one last night and surprise me by doing it, then I don't- and a lot of those on the left with me don't- fully comprehend the enormity of what the hell is going on in America right now.