In keeping with our theme here of pointing out the ironies of United States history, especially its political history, we cannot help but point you to this one: If trends this date in the morning hours of the day after election day, November 8, 2006, hold in Montana and Virginia, the Senate in January will be comprised of 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 2 Independents, one, a new Senator from Vermont, the other, a new Independent, Senator Lieberman, formerly a Democrat, of Connecticut. Senator Lieberman, you may recall, was elected by a popular majority of the voters in the year 2000 as Vice-President.

The irony is that in close Senate votes along party lines, ties will inevitably occur in an equally divided Senate. Ties of 50-50 are broken by the Vice-President's vote--the same Vice-President, in this instance, who lost the popular vote to Senator Lieberman in 2000.

Of course this 50-50 business is nothing new; the Senate was tied 50-50, if you recall, after the 2000 election--at least for five months, until the former Senator from Vermont, who just retired to be replaced by the new Independent of that state, switched from the Republican ranks to become an Independent, shifting the balance by a hair to the Democrats for a year and a half until the election of 2002.

Well, all that's only a small part of the irony, of course.

The real irony, the reddest of all ironies perhaps, is this: Senator Lieberman,--should the vote come down on a given issue,--say proposed Senate Bill XXX-3030, a bill to ban the Supreme Court from use of any writing apparati or voice enhancement devices to produce any opinion involving maintaining or extending Constitutional rights to abortion, marriage between consenting adults, burning of the United States flag, or to be free from the effects and impact generally of political corruption among Republicans, or, indeed, declaring XXX-3030 unconstitutional as unduly intrusive of the carefully crafted balance of powers between Article I and Article III--, as a 49-49 tie, and should, as expected, the new Vermont Independent vote, as in this instance, most usually with the Democrats,--well, you guessed it, Senator Lieberman will be the potential tie-maker, which inevitably would enable the Vice-President who defeated him in the electoral college by the margin of one after the Election was certified as to popular vote, after the overwhelming victory by Mr. Buchanan in Palm Beach, by the former Secretary of State of Florida, Loch Katrine you know,--by her own recent confessional, a "wannabe Jew", (maybe one who voted for Buchanan in Palm Beach?), one who also believes that non-Christians in government are "legislating sin", and who just lost badly her bid to be Senator from that state--to be the tie-breaker in accord with the Constitution should Senator Lieberman decide, that is, to be the tie-maker. Bill XXX-3030 would then pass the Senate with flying ironic colors.

Well, we tend to doubt it would transpire exactly like that on Senate Bill XXX-3030 or even its counter-active measure, Senate Bill YYY-2020, a bill to limit debate on Senate Bill XXX-3030 to one minute per Senator, far more hotly debated and contested in its path to the floor than even XXX-3030 which broke all records for filibuster. We have confidence not only that Senator Lieberman would not bow to irony in this particular episode but several of the Republicans, too, we confide, we think might be set against such a measure to limit the Supreme Court's power, at least the Supreme Court as presently constituted.

In any event, we think it ought to be the case, for poetic irony's sake, that at least one bill journey thusly upstream to make its way into law, just for the sake of the memorialization of the journey--maybe one to make Election Day officially Yellow Rose-Pink Iris Day and declare that schools and government offices shall remain closed on this day, sort of like Boxing Day in England.

On the other hand, now that Loch Katrine is out of a job completely, except maybe her campaign to be a wannabe, she may take up the cudgels as special emissary to the Allen campaign in Virginia, declare herself Secretary of State for a Day, and certify that election for the Republican incumbent to great trumpet fanfares while proclaiming herself the while as a wannabe Macaque, too. Or, should the northern corridor then rise up and run her back across the lines below the creek which runs along Manassas Junction, she could take her travelling show west to Buffalo Bill country and do as much for Montana as she did for Florida and the rest of the country in the year of Our Lord, 2000.

Well, enough of bright red rose irony for now. We shall see what we shall see.

Our advice to the Republicans: Be nice, for now, to Senator Lieberman. He may soon be your last hope. Take those signs you sported back in November, 2000 and burn them in bright red flames in your front yards--make that your backyards. Get rid of them. Bury the ashes even. They were bad puns to begin with. (As if we couldn't pun on the other guy's name as well, were we to try at it very hard...)

Incidentally, we think that in 2008, Mr. Rock should run, probably as an Independent, a wolfish one.

By the way, have you heard anything about the House races? We ourselves couldn't find it on the news where we are. Let us know if you pick it up on the shortwave. We're heading back round the Horn, after our trip to the other side, where the waves are often the shortest.