"I don't know," Brenda says.   "This looks like a good a place as any."
I look up, and see a diner on the right.   Betty's Diner.   We're on Route 22, in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, on this early Sunday morning.   We're not far from Bethlehem.   "Yeah.   Looks good."
She parks the taxi cab in front, next to a Honda CRV with McCain/Palin bumper stickers that look like they were superimposed on Bush/Cheney ones from 2004.  "I hope that when this nimrod takes them off, it takes off the paint, too," she says.
We walk in, and find a clean, cheery establishment.   An elderly woman with purple rimmed glasses comes up to greet us; she leads us to a booth on the right side of the building.   The crowds are light.   I imagine the place will fill before and after church.
"Boy," Brenda says, making herself comfortable.   "McCain really fucked it up, didn't he?"
"Yep."  I look at the menu in front of me.   Creamed Chipped beef looks good, until I remember the last time I had it, when my digestive system manufactured enough gastric energy to launch me like the Space Shuttle Endeavor.   "He couldn't have done a better job of fucking it up if he tried.   Which is the ultimate postmortem on Bush and his presidency."
"It's like, he wasn't in charge of his own campaign and everyone knew it, he let these professionals run it, and everything they were doing was completely wrong.   Meanwhile, Obama organized, organized, organized, and he cleaned his clock."
"You know what," I say, before a young waitress with teeth as big as peppermint Chiclets comes up to us.
"You folks ready?"
"Yep," Brenda says.   "I'm gonna have the French Toast and the sausage, with an extra helping of homefries."
"And I'll have three over easy, rye toast."
"Coffee for the both of you?"
We both nod.   She heads off.   "You know what?", I reiterate.   "Here's another thing.   Since Bush, the GOP's been pandering in elections to the Ignorant.   Everything's completely dumbed down for the legions of the stupid, there's no intellectual underpinnings anymore.   And, here's George Will trying to get behind it all, there's Charles Krauthammer advancing the cause of analysis, but they parade Joe the Dumber before us, and canonize him.   He's got no license, he's got no certification, he's spent most of his time on public assistance, and yet, he warns against Obama's socialism.   He's a living lie, a complete idiocy, and now some bozo out there wants to give him a contract to record Country music."
"Kind of like Jimmy Carter's brother getting a beer named after him."
"And they give us Barbie Fife, Sarah Palin.   She manages to step in shit and get herself elected Governor of her state of nineteen people and four hundred fifty thousand moose, and someone thought she'd be perfect to bring in the disaffected.   This dumb kluck knows nothing about policy, nothing about ANYTHING important, and she would've been one heartbeat away!   Just to pander to morons who actually think she'd make a good fit up there, just because she signed her kids up for hockey and went to PTA meetings.   They tell you that if you're as smart as a socket wrench, you're qualified, otherwise you're an eastern elitist, so here's Barbie Fife, with her guns and her moose and her version of God, speaking before rallies, her own version of George Wallace.   Well, her fifteen minutes are up.   She was for the Bridge To Nowhere before she was against it, she abuses the power of her office to settle family matters, and the American Idiots consider her a bright ray of sunshine!"
"You're beautiful when you get mad, George."   Ah, the tongue planted firmly in the cheek.   "I wanted you to know that."
"That's very sexist of you, Brenda."   I see our waitress coming with our order.   "I'm offended that you would say that."
She lays our breakfasts down.   Looks good!   I'm as hungry as can be.   "Enjoy!" she says.
"Well," I say, "I remember some columnist saying when she was chosen to run on the ticket with McCain that she would not get out of this unscathed.   Boy, was he right.   She might really be finished on the national level."
"I heard that what she might do, after they throw Ted Stevens out, is resign her office and then get her lieutenant governor to appoint her to his seat."
"Yeah," I say, "that's a scenario.   It certainly would be an education for her, wouldn't it?"