A millionaire took advantage of a quirky statute and pushed through the farcical recall in California. Tom DeLay’s henchmen have paralyzed the Texas government by trying to stage an unscheduled redistricting. And the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is once again in the hangman’s noose (apparently, it was being “reserved” for later drilling).

Since Florida, 2000, Republican operatives have generously hearkened to the will of the people… and then found a way to do the opposite. Never quite illegal, never quite fair, we’re at the dawning of the Age of the Do-Over.

Free speech, separation of church and state, campaign finance reform… sure, people are in favor of those things, but then again people are in favor of “The Bachelor.” Hell with ‘em. Vote, Rinse, Repeat.

ANWR is a uniquely weird case - I can only think that there must have been a particularly mean gang of caribou that used to pick on young George W. Bush regularly back at Andover, giving him wedgies and stuffing him into lockers. When Bush finally signs the bill to commence drilling in the Alaskan wilderness, long-remembered tears of helpless rage in his eyes, he will finally have his revenge on those ungulate hoodlums that made his life a living hell. [I defy anyone to come up with anything even remotely as plausible as the Bullying Caribou Theory as to why Bush would be so dead-set on drilling those tiny oil fields.]

Democrats are starting to follow suit in the eternal pursuit of the big Undo button. The replay rule is taking over professional sports. Soon, you’ll be able to automatically dispute your grocery bill at every checkout line, and patients and their families will be given the right to dispute the call when they’re officially pronounced dead.

Me, I’m not immune to the craze. I weighed in at fifteen pounds over my desired mass this morning, and rather than diet I intend to prosecute my scale to full extent of the law until a more seemly recount is achieved. This will not stand.