Alternative universe

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Thought for the Day, from a gloomy party member on the Democratic Underground Web site: "Reality sucks. That's the problem. We want another reality."

Well, they're doing a grand job of creating their alternative universe. Midday last Thursday, as George W. Bush was about to be confirmed formally as the winner of the presidential election, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, described by Agence France Presse as the "Democratic former presidential hopeful," led 400 other Democrats in a protest outside Congress. Presidential-wise, they may be former but they're still hopeful. So they were wearing orange, the color of the election protesters in Ukraine, who overturned their own stolen election with an "orange revolution."

Now on the one hand it's very brave for the Rhymin' Reverend to lead an orange protest. There is no rhyme for the word "orange." Irving Berlin tried and the best he could manage was "door-hinge," which just about works in certain boroughs of New York but would make an unreliable jingle for the Rhymin' Rev. to bellow at Bush from outside the White House:

"We're here, we're orange;

We're pushing at your door-hinge ... "

But on the other hand, what's he really saying? That Americans are in the same situation as Ukrainians? That their election was stolen? In Ukraine, the one side poisoned the other side's candidate. His face broke out and his hair turned gray. John Kerry's hair is fabulous, and for much of the campaign his glowing moisturized skin looked like an orange revolution all by itself. He was obviously worried about being poisoned, which is why he nibbled so tentatively during his pretend lunch stop at Wendy's and took only a couple of sips when doing his impression of a regular guy drinking beer at that Ohio sports bar. But he managed to dodge that bullet, and Jesse Jackson never got a chance to channel Danny Kaye: The pellet with the poison's in the Brahmin with the Botox.

But I'm beginning to wonder if Karl Rove didn't manage to slip something into the whine cellar at Democratic headquarters. It beggars belief that Rev. Jesse on the steps of Congress, and the Congressional Black Caucus in the House, and Barbara Boxer in the Senate would start the new term with yet another reprise of the same old song from the last four years -- that George W. Bush, the World's Biggest Moron, somehow managed to steal another election. That makes three in a row. The GOP is obviously getting better at it.

As usual, the media did their best to string along with the Democrats' alternative reality: For the most part, the press now fulfill the same function for the party that kindly nurses do at the madhouse; if the guy thinks he's Napoleon, just smile affably and ask him how Waterloo is going.

So Alan Fram of the Associated Press reported with a straight face that Sen. Boxer, Rep. John Conyers and the other protesting Democrats "hoped the showdown would underscore the problems such as missing voting machines and unusually long lines that plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods."

I think not. What it underscores is that the Democrats are losers. Speaking as a foreigner -- which I believe entitles me to vote in up to three California congressional districts -- I have voted on paper ballots all my life and reckon all these American innovations -- levers, punch cards, touch-screen -- are a lot of flim-flam. I would be all in favor of letting the head of Bangladesh's electoral commission design a uniform federal ballot for U.S. elections. But that's not the issue here.