You Can't Make Stuff Like This Up

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, pompous self-important twits manage to make a public spectacle of themselves that exceeds all bounds of rationality and reason. Their arrogance is punctured so completely when Reality comes and bites them on the fundament that the only thing a spectator can do is roll on the floor, laughing uncontrollably.

I therefore give to you, for your edification and amusement, one Jimmy Breslin (formerly) of Newsday, and his finest achievement, his swan-song.

One day last May, I assigned the election to John Kerry. I said it early, and often. As I looked more, I saw that it shouldn't even be close. I said that in this space more than once. Now I am so sure that I am not even going to bother to watch the results tonight. I am going to bed early, for I must rise in the darkness and pursue immediately an exciting, overdue project.

Besides, if I was up, so many people, upon seeing every word I said of this election coming true on television in front of them, would be kissing my hands and embarrassing me with outlandish praise. So I go to bed with total confidence.

Ah me. You really can't make stuff like this up.

For non-US readers, who may not be quite aware of exactly how totally, utterly, gloriously 180-degrees off-course he was, here's Mark Steyn in The Spectator :

But just to run through what happened: in the House of Representatives the Republicans have picked up five seats; in the Senate they’ve picked up at least three, maybe four, including David Vitter winning a Louisiana seat that’s been Democrat since post-Civil War reconstruction; it looks like they’ve knocked off their chief obstructionist in the Democratic caucus.

And, oh yes, the most hated man in the world has become the first President since 1988 to win over 50 per cent of the popular vote.

In other words, it’s the perfect hat trick: a Republican President, a Republican Senate and a Republican House have been re-elected for the first time since President McKinley and the GOP Congress of 1900.