My thoughts...

While I like to think that I can express my thoughts coherently, I couldn't have said this better myself. It was in the New York Times yesterday:

The era that began with police roadblocks keeping black voters from the polls in Florida is ending with the first African American almost-president. The long, wretched period bookmarked by the Florida recount and the Wall Street bailout, encompassing, for starters, 9/11, anthrax (and the run on duct tape), Iraq, the Medicaid prescription drug sellout, Katrina and such loony White House extremism that even the naked-statue-draping John Ashcroft emerged as a voice of moderation, is about to pass into the history books.

Speechless.