Giving Barcodeking his Due

As everyone knows, I lost $100 bet when Kerry lost the election.
I received the following e-mail from the winner of the bet, my politcal nemesis Barcodie, and I have to respect his constraint.

"Hi Karen,

It's over. Kerry has done the gracious thing and the right thing for the country. Don't feel bad. Your side fought the good fight for what you believed was right, just as the Confederates did during the Civil War. This time, unlike the last election, there really is no doubt whatsoever about who won. I'm glad that President Bush got a majority of the popular vote and a wide margin of victory, as well as the most votes ever cast for a U.S. president in our history. Those with "Selected Not Elected" bumper stickers on their Volvos will have to scrape them off.

In the words of a great Republican:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.
--Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

Lincoln knew that you had to win the war first, but that it was possible to be magnanimous in victory.

You can send the $100 to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund."


I will soon be sending the Red Cross a check, with instructions to apply the contribution to disaster relief in Clyde's home state of Florida.
I think Clyde deserves a pat on the back for being a most gracious winner.