Some Perhaps Not-Often-Mentioned Reasons To Be Thrilled About The Election

By Baxter

Yes, yes, we felines know that the first African-American President is a wonderful, historic thing — and we're happy that the Democrats added to their majorities in Congress (hang in there, Al Franken!). In short, we're making like Cheshire cats all day today.

But we also can think of a whole bunch of other reasons to PURR over last night's results. Here are just a few:

Come January, Joe and Jill Biden will kick the Cheneys out of the Naval Observatory.

The Secretary of the Treasury won't be Phil "Nation of Whiners" Gramm.

We won't have to listen to any news media reports from "the Western White House in Sedona, Arizona."

We can't wait to see if the respective weddings of 1) Florida Governor Charlie Crist and 2) Bristol Palin actually come off.

We'll never have to face the unpleasant prospect of bumping into Liddy Dole on the USAir flight from Washington National to Charlotte, North Carolina. (Whoops, sorry — that stopped being a possibility six years ago.)

Now we can go to Canada, meet people, and not have to start every conversation with "It's okay, we hate Bush."

Seeing dedicated Hillary Clinton backers like Ed Rendell, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Evan Bayh, Kendrick Meek and Ted Strickland instantly become Senator Obama's strongest advocates and work tirelessly to unite the party and deliver their states.

Watching all the GOP boys (Romney, Pawlenty, Ridge, Giuliani, Crist, Jeb Bush, Barbour, Allen, Santorum, Brownback, Huckabee, Jindal, etc.) swear up and down that Sarah Palin was the most qualified candidate ever for Vice President — all of whom will now have to spend the next four years trying to stop the runaway train known as Palin 2012.

Rachel Maddow getting her own show on MSNBC.

Marveling at the lasting image of the McCain crowd embarrassing itself, their candidate and their party in Phoenix last night, with their Palinesque lack of grace, class and sense of history.

Knowing that we can enjoy the holidays now without the specter of a McCain Presidency hanging over us. Hmmm, where's that lemon-garlic turkey recipe?