This week the word emboldened has made a comeback. Everybody's got it! Bush loves this word when referring to terrorists and all other vague enemies. The media loves the word when referring to the Democrats. The biggest news this week was the somehow surprising news that the GOP is struggling to hang on to Congress in the mid-term elections. The urgency of this news kind of makes us think we should be shocked at this dramatic change in national thinking. Really? In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry lost by around 3 million votes in a total of 121 million votes cast. One state's results put George Bush in office, Ohio. The voting irregularities even put the result in question for many Americans. President Bush's approval rating and the GOP's favorable opinion poll results have both seen numbers in freefall. So, how is this a shock?

Is it because we've been so discouraged for so long that there is nothing we can do to stop what many see as an out of control administration that runs roughshod over the Constitution? Have 59 million or so Americans simply given up and are actually shocked to learn that maybe 4 or 5 million people have changed their minds since the 2000 election?

I'm not shocked. I pity the moderate Republicans because they have been abandoned by the GOP. I, like a lot of people, jogged far off to the left in response to the sharp turn to the right by the GOP. I don't belong that far over there on the left, but it's where I suddenly found myself. I could not agree with anything the GOP did because I disagreed with the big fundamental issues. I felt if I even considered agreeing with the GOP or this administration on any subject I would be conceding my most important values and beliefs. Key to those beliefs were that I disagreed with President Bush on his tying Iraq to Al-Queda (A position he's since backed off of), his warrantless searches and wiretapping, his secret prisons and possible torture of prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention and the list goes on from there.

Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, in a Republican stronghold, even said recently, "They have a view of executive authority that basically smothers the other two branches."

Am I shocked that the GOP is most likely going to lose control of Congress in November? No, I'd say relieved is more what 'feeling word' I would use. I'm relieved to think there may be a way for our country to stop thinking of politics like a football game with a winner and a loser. (Sorry UT fans) In politics, you can't really win if you don't try to build a consensus among the minority opinion. In the long run, the pendulum will swing, it always does.