Nothing is ever completely lost in American politics. The forty-five percent of Americans who, according to a recent poll, are dissatisfied with the result of the elections and the forty percent that think George W. Bush did not win the election legitimately, probably believe not only that unity trumps today's injustice, but that injustice will be rectified later. I'm not so sure. Clinton's impeachment was an immoderate, if not abusive, manipulation of the constitutional powers of Congress. But the installation of Bush in the White House by politicized judicial fiat and state government intervention is a far more dangerous blow to the very democratic institutions the nation is being called on to protect with obedient silence.
Silence is consent.
I suspect that history will not be kind to either major political party. Republicans have been the perpetrators of both the Clinton impeachment and the Bush usurpation. Democrats have been the enablers. Had their presidential candidate, Al Gore, not pretended that the last eight years, impeachment excesses and interns included, had never happened, this brazen grab for power would not have taken place. The damage is done.