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I must confess: I know nothing about politics.

That much is clear after I completely misread the outcome of last week’s presidential election, one that I thought for sure was going to end up in a victory for Democratic challenger John F. Kerry.

I knew it would be close, but I thought Kerry had it in the bag. I figured he would win by 2%, 3%, or maybe even 5%, thought maybe he would pull a couple of states that went for Republican George W. Bush in 2000, and had even predicted we would have a clear winner by the day after the election. I believed it would be Kerry, and the country would come to see the wisdom of their choice and revel in our return to normalcy and understanding.

But, apparently, I was wrong.

What was it that led me down this path of error and confusion? If I wanted to, I could blame the candidates for fitting into the preconceived notions I had about them. Blame Bush, perhaps, for getting my hopes up by alternately looking like a confused puppy and an annoyed teen-ager during the debates, and sticking to a set of talking points on the campaign trail that were little more than transparent lies anyone could see through.

Dear Molly,

It is now November 3rd and we are faced with the horror of four more years of Bush.  I firmly believe that there will be a reactivation of the draft, no matter what Bush said while campaigning.  I have a sixteen year old son who is an intellectual and anti war.  I cannot bear to think of this child with a gun in his hands or a knife at his throat.  I am feeling a lot of anger at family and co-workers whose only concern was that they get a chance at vouchers for their private schools.  How can people be so short sighted?  When and where will this end?  I am very sad today.  Thank you for your column.  Pam Clibon

Pamela  Clibon

The votes are cast, our public spoke,
and chose once more, a bitter joke.
I'm depressed to see this fooled country
choose to end up despised and broke.

Dear John:

Hey, buddy, I just thought I would drop you a line and share a few thoughts, ask a question or two. I want to understand what has just happened to you, and I want you to understand what this means to all of us who supported you, and thought you were serious when you announced that you wanted to be President of the United States.

     First of all, when George W. Bush asked you if you would have still authorized the use of force against Iraq if you had known at that time that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, the correct answer was, “No, I would not have done so, because Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the security of the United States and its people.” It was the easiest question any presidential candidate has ever been asked, to my knowledge. You could have dominated the news in a positive and vote-getting way for ten news cycles, easily, and it would have made a nice opening for you in the debates. But you said yes. Why, John? Were you trying to lose?

I must confess: I know nothing about politics.

That much is clear after I completely misread the outcome of last week’s presidential election, one that I thought for sure was going to end up in a victory for Democratic challenger John F. Kerry.

I knew it would be close, but I thought Kerry had it in the bag. I figured he would win by 2%, 3%, or maybe even 5%, thought maybe he would pull a couple of states that went for Republican George W. Bush in 2000, and had even predicted we would have a clear winner by the day after the election. I believed it would be Kerry, and the country would come to see the wisdom of their choice and revel in our return to normalcy and understanding.

But, apparently, I was wrong.

What was it that led me down this path of error and confusion? If I wanted to, I could blame the candidates for fitting into the preconceived notions I had about them. Blame Bush, perhaps, for getting my hopes up by alternately looking like a confused puppy and an annoyed teen-ager during the debates, and sticking to a set of talking points on the campaign trail that were little more than transparent lies anyone could see through.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Do you know how to cure a chicken-killin' dog? Now, you know you cannot keep a dog that kills chickens, no matter how fine a dog it is otherwise.

Some people think you cannot break a dog that has got in the habit of killin' chickens, but my friend John Henry always claimed you could. He said the way to do it is to take one of the chickens the dog has killed and wire the thing around the dog's neck, good and strong. And leave it there until that dead chicken stinks so bad that no other dog or person will even go near that poor beast. Thing'll smell so bad the dog won't be able to stand himself. You leave it on there until the last little bit of flesh rots and falls off, and that dog won't kill chickens again.

The Bush administration is going to be wired around the neck of the American people for four more years, long enough for the stench to sicken everybody. It should cure the country of electing Republicans.

And at least Democrats won't have to clean up after him until it is real clear to everyone who made the mess.

A distraught young person called me in tears on the morning after the election, amid the ashes of the terrible defeat for the Democrats and for liberal hopes. I tried to console her by saying that in 1980, things looked pretty dark after Ronald Reagan and the Republicans swept into power, yet only 12 years later, we had a draft-dodging adulterer ensconced in the White House and the Democrats back in control of Congress for a couple of years.

This didn't help, so I rushed her back to 1956, when Eisenhower was reelected and the skies looked dark. But only four years later, we had a Democratic war hero-adulterer on the parapet of Camelot and the Summer of Love only seven years down the road.

America is in full-scale retrograde.

The recent so-called "election" of George W Bush in the USA signals plainly that America is too be taken down by force. The puppeteers behind the New World Order have determined that America will be turned into a defacto federal fascist police state, complete with concentration camps and guillotines. Targeted will be American dissidents- both left and right- anyone who opposes the coming dictatorial New World Order.

The American people voted en masse to elect Democratic Senator John Kerry. The ultra-right wing corporate owners of the electronic voting machines (Diebold Inc, hq'ed in the US state of Ohio) used in the 2004 elections, were fixed, manipulated and illegally hacked, tampered and altered to "elect" George W Bush as President. Diebold's CEO in Ohio is stated on record that he was 'dedicated to deliver the election to Bush'. The USA has a long history of manipulating elections in other "banana republic" countries throughout the world. Now they have manipulated the elections in the USA and completely fooled and usurped the American people and the American vote FOR THE SECOND TIME!!!.

Dear America,

I want a ride on the Elephant.

You are now Republican through and through. You are ‘God’s Country.’ In the Senate, in the House and in the Presidential offices. Your new Supreme Court nominees can overturn Roe v. Wade. You can keep fighting on in Iraq and take Iran to the brink. You can keep your deficits, your pharmacare, your tax cuts, and your big oil money flowing. And keep those Defense contracts primed up, baby. It’s going to be wild ride!

You beat the Democrats into oblivion. There’s nothing left of them. So this morning, given the immensity of the rout, we are all diminished, we are all impoverished and we are all possible recipients of your arrogance.

An election which defines a time and a generation only comes along about once every fifty years. This time the whole world was watching. This was the election where we all ended up liking John Kerry. But it wasn't good enough.

We wanted to fall in love with him.