Y'know, the election is over a week old now. I wasn't planning on gloating. My guy won, it wasn't as big a victory as I expected, but I was happy with the outcome. A hospital stay prevented me from commenting in a timely fashion, but I figured enough good commentary was made, so I was planning to just let it go. So then I get this review to another essay:

"Do you lot have to be so damn smug? Don't forget, Bush's majority is less than five percent; if he's not careful, all that stuff about the right to rise up and overthrow the government might just come up and bite him on the arse. And what happened to those fifty thousand postal ballots...?"

So who left this review? James Jago. That's right. James Jago has returned to once again inflict his own special brand of stupidity on my work. Talk about exaggeration! There's going to be a revolution just because Bush had the nerve to win and not act like he owes people who wouldn't vote for him with guns to their heads an apology for not giving the job to his opponent?

Screw you, James! George Bush won re-election fair and square, and those of us who backed him have every right to be as "smug" as we damn well please, especially considering Bush won his second term after four solid years of insults, verbal brickbats and downright slander hurled at him by people like you. Telling me I shouldn't be "smug" about his winning is like telling a Boston Red Sox Fan that he shouldn't be so pleased that his team owned the World Series - and being a Yankee fan I speak from experience, because that would be the first thing I'd tell a Bosox fan! "You shouldn't be so happy about sweeping the series because the Yankees have so many more titles than you!"

Here's the thing: I'm not saying it because there's any objective truth to it. I'm saying it because I don't want my Boston rivals to enjoy their win because my team got skunked!

It's the same thing with you! Bush won, Kerry lost, and you can't stand to see anybody who wanted Bush to win get any enjoyment out of it. Well, sorry to disappoint you, James, but I, for one, fully intend to sport a big grin on my grille every time I consider the fact that the Presidential Election of 2004 resulted in the clear victory of No. 43 in his re-election bid.

Now, let's address this "five percent" majority nonsense. Here's what that five percent lead meant in real life:

-The Electoral Vote:

Bush: 286

Kerry: 252

Not only did Bush score 34 more Electors than Kerry, but he got 16 more than he actually needed to win re-election. Kerry ended up short 18!

-The State Tallies:

Bush: 31 States.

Kerry: 19 States + Washington, DC

Last I checked, 31 was a hell of a lot bigger majority of 50 than "five percent". I don't care how you massage the numbers, I'd rather have 31 states under my belt than 19 plus a municipality that thinks it's a state.

-The Popular Vote:

Bush: 59,841,499

Kerry: 56,382,976

Margin (for Bush): 3,458,523

Granted, this margin, when compared against the number of actual votes, isn't all that big. However, taken against the popular vote results of the 2000 Election, it's fantastic. After all, Bush lost the popular vote to Gore four years ago, and this has been a source of no end of aggravation to the left. But the margin then was only 539,937 votes nationwide. I don't know about you, but I happen to think that going from losing the vote by six hundred thousand to winning it by three and a half million is worth sending a few "Attaboys" Bush's way.

And one more word about the margin of victory: Kerry only really got close toward the end of the race. At the beginning on Election Night, when the returns started coming in, Bush pulled way ahead early in both the Electoral and Popular Votes. Kerry never managed a Popular Vote lead of any significance and Bush never lost his Electoral lead the whole night, until the race reached a point where all Bush needed was Ohio to clinch re-election, while Kerry would have needed Ohio and an impossible calculus of other states just to pull even. Numbers-wise the race may have ended close, but competition-wise Election Night was George Bush's night all the way through.

And if those "fifty thousand postal ballots" would have done anything to change that, Kerry would still be fighting over them. But Kerry and his advisors, unlike some of his supporters, can count. That's why he conceded.

So if you supported George Bush, go nuts! Your guy pulled off a big win November 2! He stayed the 43rd President of the United States by beating John Kerry, just like I said he would. Go ahead and gloat about it with a clear conscience!

And if that gloating pisses off James Jago, all the better.