"My Name Was on the Street?"

It is the eve of the 2010 midterm elections, and I would be remiss if I let the moment pass without some commentary. Of course, Interweb Detritus' fierce and furious election coverage in the build-up to the 2008 hope and change extravaganza was -- history will judge -- worthy of awards and plaudits. The crowning pinnacle of my own offerings in those heady times can be found here. (7-part series; scroll to the bottom.)

It has been almost three years since that series. Back then we didn't even know that ______ was going to get capped by his own ______; and that blank would avenge his death by capping _______. Season 5 of The Wire, its laboring and loopy goodness (not greatness) had yet to kind of disappoint us. The economy hadn't yet fully cratered; Obama still had a glimmer of promise; "Predator drone" and "top kill" were not part of our quotidian exchanges.

The day after the soul-shattering election of 2008 I changed the subheading to the blog to what it reads now. I wish I weren't so cynical, but neither cynicism--nor presecience for that matter--can be credited with those words. We elected a slippery, fundamentally non-ideological person--someone who announced himself that way--but who somehow convinced us that his rhetoric was different than all the rhetoric that came before. To reconstitute the words of Slim Charles, when you run on a lie, I suppose, you lose--or lose ground--on that lie too.

And so here we are. The midterms of 2010, and the economy has not improved; the same bovine, unprincipled middle 30% that liked the branding two years ago has found a different brand to get behind now. When you unleash a hope for change in the electorate, that feeling will become endemic. I don't know. What I do know is this: there are some fucking first-class fuck-ups who are taking their guns and their pillboxes and their serpentine flags to Washington come January. After the election results are posted tomorrow, I'll check the count and tally the bodies. Check back in then for....

Elected Tea Party Horsemen of the Apocalypse as Characters from The Wire.