When the United States can be so angry with incumbents (many of whom happen to be Democrats, thanks to the previous backlashes against the horrendous missteps made and crimes committed by Republicans before them) that its voters seem in the mood to toss them all out, handing control back to the right wing, it's hard for me to think of our country's citizens as very bright. People don't seem to overly care about the most partisan issues as long as they are able to live in an unspectacular but contented state; when the going gets tough, they want to throw the bums out, even if the bigger bums are the alternative.

For example, it baffles me that someone like Mike Huckabee is considered a nice guy and a mainstream Republican and is on the short list of possible Republican presidential (or vice-presidential, more likely) contenders in '12, and yet he will say things like the following regarding gay people adopting:

"Children are not puppies. This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?"

 Indeed, children are not puppies. And they should not have to spend their formative years trapped in a pound/orphanage when there are gay parents who would love to have them. (Puppies shouldn't either, but that's another post.) Even if one were to agree that two men or two women are not as good as a male and female parenting team (I sure don't), isn't there any room to realize that something is better than nothing? After all, straight parenting teams do go wrong, do molest or ignore or batter or otherwise scar their children, do get divorced, do make mistakes. There is no set of perfect parents. But there are, apparently, parents not even good enough to have a shot.

And this is the party the voters are considering turning to because the economy is soft.