Still a Democracy, Last I Checked

I've been mostly busy with a project at work, but I did watch the Inauguration Ceremony this morning. I'm happy to see that all of the ideological extremists who predicted The End of the World were wrong. President Bush neither suspended elections "for the duration of the present emergency," found some pretext for staying in office, or issued a telephone-book sized list of pardons. President Obama did not declare an Islamic Dictatorship or a Socialist Workers State under his Maximum Leadership this afternoon.

I do wish that someone would do a better job of calling all of the extremist loons who predicted the Death of Democracy for one reason or another and ask them to justify themselves. It wouldn't even be difficult for them, as I expect they'll easily come us with some sort of rationalization that isn't "I was wrong."

I know from listening to talk radio this morning on my way to the office that there are people out there who do in their hearts believe that American Democracy died this afternoon, because Their Guy isn't President anymore. In a sense, it's a larger-scale version of the annual grousing about the Hugo Awards, which runs "Any system that doesn't give me 100% of what I want is obviously flawed structurally."