... 'cause no one else seems to be talking about it.

* A friend told me, "I'm going to make a few calls, but come to think of it, everyone I know went down to Washington."

* For the past couple of days, Starbucks has been handing out red, brown, and blue cup sleeves (the brown is supposed to be white, of course, but they don't bleach), and I've heard a couple people this morning comment on how much  they love them.

* I heard an interview on C-Span this morning that said that the Washington subway system was packed at 3:30 a.m.

This brings to mind a couple of things. The first one is, was there this kind of fuss eight years ago? In some ways, perhaps only superficial, the situations are analogous: two-term president on the way out, with plenty of very passionate opponents/haters; switching parties after a pretty close election. 

I'm always trying to check myself for slant, and my tendency is to think that all the attention is the result of left-wing joy here in the largely lefty state of Massachusetts, supplemented by left-wing media bias across the board. I do think those are factors, but it also seems to me that the sort of emotion the burst open in front of the White House and elsewhere on Election Night has only been growing.

The second thing is, this sort of celebrating could have been happening eight years ago, and I would have missed it. Not by accident, but by angry, willful attempt to tune out the result. Yes, part of my reaction was to the injustice of it (it's the only time I've ever written to the Supreme Court, but I sent it to Scalia, so I'm doubtful it was read). 

But I was also angry and fearful, and I didn't want to face it. Angry at my fellow Americans for making such an absurd choice, letting themselves be manipulated by sid crap that was real but ephemeral to matters of governing. And fearful about the damage Bush could do — in a whistling-through-the-graveyard way, I hoped that perhaps we could get through one lackluster term without his screwing up too much and then moving on, without believing it would happen that way. (Even so, I never realized what a outstanding screw-up he would be.)

So I blocked out whatever was happening.

I'm sure there are Americans feeling that way today, but I suspect they are remarkably fewer than we were eight years ago. One reason is that George Bush failed so illustrously and variably, we don't have the same luxury of hoping he won't be that bad — another eight years like the last eight and it might be all over. Another is that a lot of people are hungry for integrity and leadership, and we're thinking that this could be the guy.

For the rest of you, I can relate. I hope that the difference in our experiences is that the new guy will be as good as his supporters think he will be.