The people have spoken, and we still don't know who the new president will be. Florida was too close to call, so they recounted. Bush won by a little over 300 votes, so now they will hand recount the votes. After that, whoever is losing will most likely go to the courts expressing voter poll fraud, and once that happens, it will snowball all the way to the Supreme Court. I don't feel good about this.

Remember that bridge we built to the 21st Century? If I had known it was only going to bring us here, I think I would have stayed on the other side of the river. This may be the first president to sue his way into office. God Bless America. We should have known it was coming.

Half of America is going to be pleased with the outcome, and the other half will cry foul. No matter who becomes president, half of the public will believe the winner attained the office unjustly and refuse to respect their authority. Unfortunately, I didn't like either one of these guys and can't claim a winner or loser. I don't know who the next president is yet, and I'm already planning to vote against him in 2004.

While the historic aspect of the election is intriguing, the candidates are not. Bush had the bad taste of naming cabinet members before the Florida recount. Gore had the gall to demand another recount before they had finished even finished the first one. If Bush is ahead after the next recount, I suggest that Gore concede the election. That would be the third time he lost Florida, and three strikes means you're out.

The Democrats have been playing the blame game since election night. They blame Ralph Nader for sucking their votes away. Throughout the election, I never heard Gore or the Democrats appeal to Green supporters. All I heard were scare tactics--A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush and so on. Maybe if the Democrats had tried courting Greens instead of scaring them, they may have picked up a few votes. More flies with honey... They blame the West Palm Beach butterfly ballot. They blame everybody but themselves. Gore lost Tennessee, of all places, but you don't hear the Democrats bringing that up. If your own state can't get behind you, why should the rest of the country? The Democratic candidate was unimpressive, their campaign was seriously flawed, and they aren't worthy of maintaining the presidency.

That, of course, leaves Bush. While I don't like him as a candidate and I'll like him less as a president, I'm ready to concede. I checked CNN for days as the Florida recount occurred, and by the end, I just wanted it finished. Bush won, and I sighed. But when it was over, it wasn't over.

Was there voter fraud? Probably. If we ran a fine-toothed comb over all the election results, there will be hundreds of examples of votes being thrown out and confusing ballots. That's democracy. We screw up all the time. Do we really want to find out how corrupt we really are? I already have a pretty good idea, and it's not going to make me respect either Gush or Bore.

The people voted, and nothing was concluded. It's now out of the hands of the people. It's now in the hands of lawyers, judges and campaign leaders. I can't predict the outcome, but the result will be hollow. No praise for the winner, no tears for the loser.

As I look far off into the horizon, I can already see the traffic backing up as far as the eye can see. Looks like four years of gridlock.

Chris Jungle won't rely on the government for anything productive in a long time.