The freakout, imo, is not about who the president is or is not, but the fact that it is really hard for us to wrap our head around the fact that more people in this country wanted him to stay in office than wanted to get rid of him. because we are so in our metro/blog-world bubble it was (and is) a total surprise that people that we share a country with are so firmly behind him and what he stands for.

Simply I think the freakout is linked to feeling alienated in our own country.

Abe, you're an island of sanity.

I guess I should say a little more than that. I'm having much the same reaction to people's reponses as you are.

My best guess is that some people talked themselves so strongly into the idea that Bush wasn't elected the first time that this transformed itself into the idea that he couldn't be elected.

For me, it's the fact that with the election, we sent out the message -- both to Bush and Co. and the rest of the world -- that this American president has carte blanche. None of the offenses or even atrocities he's committed -- abroad or domestically -- prevented him from being reelected. So people are understandably left wondering what recourse do we have from here on out? -- Before the election, Bush had to consider that we were a force, and that he had to keep up at least a semblance of "reality-based" judgement, because he needed to get reelected. Now he can fully unleash his fanatical christian, faith driven, armegeddon inducing self and do whatever he wants or rather, whatever his god tells him to do. I can see how that's cause for some to freak out. I personally think that freak out could be a good thing, if it translates into more action.

Similar issue in Australia. For a moment, we thought we could change the world.

All that time as our governments turned into invaders, we had hope. We the people could DUMP THEM, and tell our governments in the future than an enraged democratic population still had its morals even if they didn't.

Do I feel bad about being wrong? You betcha.