Stone knives and bear skins

You know I've been trying to figure out a way to best describe a big part of my jubilation about the election results, and if I had to summarize it really briefly it would be the hope that in the coming months and years people like Jonah Goldberg might no longer be considered part of the informed pundits to whom we should listen. The idea that in the not too distant future this kind of thing will no longer be taken as serious political commentary:

How Bush Should Handle Loss [Jonah Goldberg]
I think James Baker and Dick Cheney should take Bush out to the woods around Camp David. After 24 hours in a sweat lodge, he should be given only a loin cloth, a hunting knife and a canteen of water. Bush should then set out to track and kill a black bear, after which he should eat its still beating heart so he can absorb its spirit. He should then fly back to Washington in Marine 1. His torso still scratched from the bear's claws, his face bloodied and steaming in the November chill, he should immediately give a press conference at which he throws the bearskin on the front row of the press corps, completely enveloping Helen Thomas, declaring, "I'm not going anywhere."

This will send important messages to Democrats and well as to our enemies overseas, who are no doubt high-fiving as we speak.

I've read better fanfic for Christ's sake. People who were cheering yesterday were cheering, in great part, for the hope that this country might finally be returning to something like sanity. Where things like objective reality, educated opinion, and an emotional maturity greater than that of a high schooler will be lauded once more. Where people like Rush Limbaugh would never get a chance to interview the goddamn President of the United States. Jesus.

UPDATE: Oh jeez, and how could I have forgotten this gem from Hugh Hewitt in the days leading up to the election:

I get a lot of e-mail asking me why I point to polls like the one favoring Steele when I discount some polls favoring some Democrats.

Because this question comes mostly from lefties, I will pause to explain in as uncomplicated a fashion as possible.

Polling methodology and models favors Democrats.

So polls that show Republicans tied or ahead I see as indicating a race in which the Republican is in the lead.

Polls that show a Republican within striking distance I see as a poll indicating a dead heat.

It shouldn't be that hard to grasp, even for a lefty.

Now compare that to this from Stephen Colbert:

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man [the Preident] has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

The only difference is that one is satire and one deadly serious. Glenn Greenwald sums it up nicely:

Dismissing unpleasant polling data and insisting that you're winning is exactly the same dynamic as dismissing reports about a civil war in Iraq and insisting that things are going well, or dismissing reports about the inability of inspectors to find WMDs and insisting that they are really there, hidden somewhere. It's one thing to assess reality and draw the wrong conclusions from it or exercise wrong judgment about it. Everyone does that.

But the President and his followers don't just do that. Like children -- or, more accurately, like those who are driven by an unshakable, faith-driven belief that they are Right -- they just ignore reality when it isn't what they want it to be or think it should be, and they just magically invent a different reality that they like better, and then stay there. Hewitt expressly described how he does that, and he is about as pure an expression of the Bush movement as it gets. The President and his followers simply don't accept or live in reality and literally don't believe in facts.