It's all happening so quickly. Just a few weeks ago she was just a passing fancy. The thought that she would come so easy was never in your mind. And then the pants came off and she said, "That other guy is such a prick! Take me, I'm yours!" If it were always this easy.

Everyone thought that the Democrats would have to wait for two years before gaining power again in Congress. And now, look at this. A man defects from the Republicans and suddenly (this summer) the tide has shifted. Everyone gets new positions, new name tags, new places to sit while they bicker back and forth about the state of the ordinary U.S. citizen. Y'know, those people who vote and then have no say at all after the votes have been counted, shuffled, recounted and finally certified by whichever party is ruling the counting committee at the time.

This shouldn't have been such a surprise, but apparently it was to the Republicans. Between spits and epithets about how "disingenuous" it is to win an election as a Republican and then switching so quickly to the dark side, the Republican leaders (and the White House) say they had no idea there was a problem.

Senator James Jeffords (small-i, Vermont), apparently, did not confide in the people who he has, for the time being, pushed out of power. He was talking to the other side. And while Jeffords hasn't fully converted to a Democrat state of mind, his actions provided the first real volley of arms in what will probably become a very contentious Senate.

For the first half of this year, everyone was wondering what the Democrats were going to do to stop all of the dumb ass shit the Prez was pushing down their throats. Everything was getting approved, and not by one vote either--meaning that a few Democrats were hedging their bets. If they sided with the majority, then maybe they wouldn't get blamed if the Republicans actually came up with something good. They were spineless, without direction and way too busy talking about who was going to run for President next (in four years, people!) than to try to put up a unified front.

Now, through no real effort of their own, the Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate. What will they do, other than crow about their new chairmanships and flowing robes with "Majority" spray-painted in garish letters for all the Republicans to see?

One thing that might happen is the defeat of Bush's Dumb Shit Idea #3 (otherwise known as the New Star Wars anti-ballistic missile defense system). With Democrats controlling the committees that bring bills to the floor, it is possible that all of this insanity about a "Defense Shield" will die a quick death. All I can really hope for is a good fight against this idiocy.

I equate the New Star Wars system to the recently released movie about Pearl Harbor. Named (for those who weren't quite sure what the movie was about) "Pearl Harbor," this monstrosity of modern movie making clocks in at just over three hours. From all accounts (and I am trusting the dozens of horrible reviews I've read), the only reason to watch this flick is to see everything blow up for forty minutes in the Pearl Harbor Attack reenactment. That's all they could come up with for $150 million bucks? Talk about government waste.

I propose to theater owners that they should show "Pearl Harbor: The Audience Cut," consisting only of the 40 minutes of computerized destruction and nothing else. They can throw 20 minutes of previews on it and run the thing every hour and a half--getting in over twice the showings a day that the regular cut has. Everyone will be happy--or at least entertained in more of a streamlined fashion.

This is the effect I hope Jeffords' defection has on government. Get the Prez to stop changing his mind about why we're all getting a tax cut (now it's so we can pay for our gas this summer) and make him actually think about something. I know it's going to hurt, but he is President. He should be able to deal with it. I mean, slightly less than half of the voting population put him into office, that's something, isn't it? Actually, it is. It means he doesn't have a mandate to push through whatever his not-so-feverish little mind has rolling around in it. And since the Democrats have pulled the same rabbit out of the hat (getting control of the Senate on a technicality), it means the Prez'll actually have to come up with a coherent argument for why we should believe him.

The change in Senate leadership takes place after this week. The tax cuts get through (one of Jeffords' concessions to the Prez), but what else?

What does this girl really want from you? Is she just playing with you before she runs back to her old man? Is this a true change in stripes or merely another game to play? Of course, you're too busy eating that cake to watch what she's doing with her hands. Which is the whole trick of politics in the first place: give the public too much of what they want until they're on a sugar high and start to get sick. And that's when she comes with that roundhouse right.

Matt Worley will be using his newly empowered voting muscle to bring baseball back to the old sports stadium in Albuquerque.