Election Inspires Humor, Gloating, Even Apologies

The beating they took in the Nov. 2 presidential election has launched Democrats and assorted other George W. Bush antagonists on an existential roller-coaster, vacillating between despair and anger, a desire to flee and a resolve to stay and fight.

Thank goodness there are those who see the opportunity for a little humor in it all.

A fake “official seal” of the Democratic Party that’s been circulating shows the face of a wailing baby. But some have clearly found that it’s better to laugh than cry.

In the week since Democrats woke up with their throbbing political hangover, Canadians have gone online to offer marriage to Americans wanting to flee north during the second Bush term.

At another site, ordinary Americans have posted their photos and handwritten apologies to the world. A Philadelphia newspaper columnist satirized his time at a “Liberal Media Re-education Camp at Gitmo.” Buttons like “Bush Won, earth zero” are popping up for sale on others, as are fake Time magazine covers with pictures of President Bush and profane headlines.

The Onion humor site quotes liberals as getting back to “warming our hands over burning American flags and turning kids gay,” and e-mail boxes are filling with forwarded parody maps of the United States (on one, the North is labeled “United States of Canada,” the South “Jesusland”).

Unverified lists showing blue-staters with superior average IQ scores have been circulating, as have detailed directions on how to expatriate, including starting a micro-nation of your own, along with a hearty “good luck” at finding an unclaimed rock on which to plant your flag.

But offering a path easier than nation-building (just ask Bush) are the folks at www.marryanamerican.ca, where the motto “No good American will be left behind” translates to offers by Canadians willing to “sacrifice their singlehood to save our Southern neighbours from four more years of cowboy conservatism.”

There’s a British Columbia gal calling herself “I (heart) trees1985” who does a wicked Joni Mitchell impersonation and is looking for “someone to save trees with me,” preferably “a boy named Chad, Conner or MacKenzie.” Or how about “LeftyLucy,” a “sensitive, loving” lesbian from Nova Scotia who knows how to knit and can “talk endlessly about iambic pentameter.” And for the (straight) ladies? How ‘bout a real cowboy: “MyHatIsTall1966” from Calgary says he’s hot for chaps and wants a real classy lady.

Before you race to respond: The site is delightfully tongue-in-cheek, the brainchild of some smart-alecks at Geekend, which describes itself as a creative technology collective in Toronto.

Serious -- and sometimes seriously funny -- is www.sorryeverybody.com, where dismayed Dems from across the country are exorcising their demons by posting photos of themselves holding signs like “Sorry, world (we tried) -- (signed) Half of America,” and another with “we’re sorry” written in candy.

The site has become so popular worldwide that it was nearly impossible to log onto. Democrats might want to try late at night while sleeplessly fretting over the state of the nation under Bush redux.

While Democrats seek some catharsis through humor, Republicans are simply planning world domination as they revel -- or “savor,” as OpinionJournal’s Peggy Noonan wrote eight times in a recent column.

On the lively chat room at www.nationalreview.com, conservatives joked that a concert on the White House lawn hosted by Michael Moore and featuring Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, the Dixie Chicks and the Dave Matthews band has been canceled.

And between cheerleading for the assault on Fallouja, mocking Sen. John F. Kerry for saying he may run again and attempting to decide the fate of moderate GOP Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, they recycled the “sore-loserman” tag for Democrats popularized during the disputed 2000 election.

Republicans are also e-mailing their own map of the country, headlined “Bush Country! See it, Get it!” It shows a sea of red flooding the land, with just tiny dabs of blue here and there.