Seven years ago, on election night 2000, I walked into a convenience store

and the clerk (a kid in his early twenties) proudly told me he had voted for * because he believed Dems unfairly made too big a deal of his DUI. Of course, neither the national party nor Gore's campaign had even touched the story, but I didn't bother arguing with him about those facts: I merely said that although I really didn't how much coke * had shoved up his nose, I thought it was hypocritical for him to put so many people in jail for the same reason. The kid didn't quite know what to say.

Tonight I walked into the same convenience store. And tonight the clerk (a middle-aged fellow, perhaps late forties or early fifties) and another customer were ranting eloquently about the Resident. I can't capture it exactly but it was along the lines: he pardons his friends but there are plenty of other people he really should pardon: why won't he pardon them and don't get me started about Iraq and no he wants to go into Iran, with some additional sentiment about how clueless * is -- one of these days he's due for a rude awakening). I told the clerk he wasn't the only one made about these things. And he just nodded.

Seven years: what a long frickin walk in the wilderness

It was an amazing journey, so far, but not over.

while the current clerk in his late 40s or early 50s. The younger clerk may have been in school or "just deciding what he was going to do with his life", but I don't think that is the case for the current older clerk. Ah yes, life in America after 7 years of the bush economic miracle.