Adventures in Schadenfreude

I have been enjoying a pleasant wandering through the rightwing blogsphere. They are working through the first stages of grief.

Stage 1: Denial
Certainly the most common thread of denial is the claim that that they didn't really lose at all. The election was not a repudiation of conservativism, just Republicans. Somehow trying to pretend that A doesn't equal B. A lot of Republicans are clinging to Lieberman's victory in Connecticut as proof that the nation really backs the Iraq War and the losses everywhere else were aberrations. Others argue that, if you look back far enough in history, the losses aren't so bad. "If you compare this election to the results in 1862...."

Stage 2: Anger
A startingly number of rightwing bloggers are hoping for a terrorist nuclear attack on New York or Los Angeles to "teach the country a lesson." It seems nothing will make grieving conservatives feel better than reducing a major American city to radioactive slag.

Most of the anger is aimed at Bush. He's a traitor to conservatives for: firing Rumsfeld, for not firing Rumsfeld last month, for saying Nancy Pelosi's name without throwing up on his shoes, for sounding conciliatory towards Democrats. Several commenters (the best of these is from streiff, one of the bigwigs at Redstate) have declared Wednesday marks defeat in Iraq, defeat against Al-Qaeda, even the end of Western Civilization. And it's all Bush's fault!!!!

Stage 3: Bargaining
Not much happening here yet, but it is early. A few writers are looking to win back the Senate by the death of a couple Democratic senators from states with Republican governors. Hawaii, California, and Massachusetts are the most frequently mentioned states. If any of these six senators dies in mysterious airplane crashes in the next few weeks, it was not an accident.