The times are a'changin.

Wow. I don't even know where to start after that exciting election day. The Democrats won the House quite decisively, and they are just barely leading in the Senate race in Virginia, which would give them control of the Senate. I was right in 3 of my predictions, Bob Casey and Sherrod Brown trounced their opponents in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and Bob Corker eked out a win in Tennessee. The Rhode Island race really surprised me; I had expected moderate Lincoln Chaffee to hold onto his senate seat, but he was beat by the Democrat. Winning in Missouri and Montana was also a pleasant surprise. Missouri and Virginia had been the closest races in the country. Now we're just waiting for the results out of Virginia which may not be settled for a few weeks. Democrats also picked up quite a few state governorships and now have a sizeable majority. So wow. Thus ends the Republican Revolution of 1994.

Things are already changing a little. Rumsfeld just announced that he is resigning as Secretary of Defense. Of course, things may or may not change depending on who replaces him. (Just say NO to Paul Wolfowitz) Nancy Pelosi is set to become the first female Speaker of the House, further 'breaking the marble ceiling' for women. That pretty much leaves just the Presidency, Vice Presidency and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as the highest ranking positions that women haven't held yet.

Ah, Bush just announced that he is nominating Robert Gates, former Director of the CIA, to replace Rumsfeld. Currently he is the president of Texas A&M University, and sits on several corporate boards, including those of some oil drilling companies. I think to be appointed to a job in the Bush Administration you have to have the prerequisite of being sleazily connected to a huge corporation that will possibly benefit from you holding that job, despite all your denials that there will be no conflict of interest (like Haliburton/Cheney and Alcoa/O'Neill).

Gates definitely does have an impressive resume when it comes to working in the intelligence community; he started out in the Air Force for 2 years, then worked at the CIA for several years, then was on the National Security Council for 9 years, then went back to the CIA. It does seems like he knows his stuff. Unfortunately, 'his stuff' is the Soviet Union and the Cold War. Uhhhhh, ok, I'm sure he's really smart, but his knowledge is kind of obselete when it comes to today's military climate. This guy has pretty much been a college president since September 11. I guess I was hoping Bush could find someone a little more modern, who maybe, ya know, knew some Arabic, or is a China expert, or had served in the military a little more recently than the mid 1960's. Or maybe, I know this is just a crazy idea, but maybe Bush could even have chosen someone who hadn't also served in his dad's administration. Or maybe someone who's not an old white guy. Oh well.