3 Perspectives on Election Night

I like to flip between the three cable news channels when I watch election coverage. It's like traveling between three different dimensions without leaving your couch. Here's a recap of last night:

CNN: We welcome you to our live election coverage! We're bringing you analysis from a variety of perspectives tonight. In fact, we have so many analysts on our panel that our news desk is in the shape of an "L" just to fit them all! That's right, we have more commentators working tonight than you can actually see on your tv! We thought this was a good idea for some reason! Anyway, our panel includes: Donna Brazile, from the African-America perspective; Alex Castellanos from the Latin American conservative perspecitve; James Carville the crazy liberal cajun that we've just let out of his cage; Bill Bennet, the grumpy old conservative...

MSNBC: We welcome you to tonight's funeral. We had fun while our party lasted. Stay with us over the next five hours as we try to explain why America has lost its collective mind.

Fox News: We welcome you to tonight's HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is going to be GREAT!

CNN: We also have Gloria Berger, from the white feminist perspective; Anderson Cooper, our intellectual skeptic, Donald Martin, from the male African American perspective...

MSNBC: Breaking news: it's just been announced that the Republicans have won the House. Just as tragically, beloved Senator Russ Feingold has lost in Wisconsin. How did Wisconsin vote out Russ Feingold? This was RUSS FEINGOLD? What is wrong with you, Wisconsin? You've just voted out the best Senator of all time. Please turn the channel, we don't even want to talk to you.

Fox News: (News anchor #1) So it looks like the Republicans will take control of the House, but not the Senate. But we have the House, and home is where the heart is!

(News anchor #2) What is this Senate thing of which you speak? Don't you know the Republicans just won the House? Let's take a look at how Martha Roby won Alabama District 2, and then we'll proceed through the alphabet with an in-depth look at each of the 240 House races the Republicans have won so far. Meanwhile, in an effort to live up to our "fair and balanced" motto, we'll go live to every single victory speech by a Republican winner tonight.

MSNBC: You know, Russ Feingold truly lived up to his name. He really was as fine as gold. We're so bummed about him losing, that we're going to go live to the concession speech of Delaware witch-turned-losing Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell, just to cheer us up. Even though this has no news value whatsoever, she might say something dumb that we can laugh at. It's what Russ Feingold would have wanted.

CNN: And to the right, outside of your view, we have Wolf Blitzer, who will break in at inopportune moments and give you meaningless exit poll results, such as "56 percent of women wearing green preferred that their candidate wear sandals while on vacation, while 42 percent preferred loafers. But this was true only among independents and women named Jane."

MSNBC: We're now joined by GOP minority whip Eric Cantor. We're not sure why he agreed to this, but we will make him regret it. Mr. Cantor, will you admit tonight that all of your campaign promises were lies or will you lie again and deny it? Isn't it true that you've spent the last two years opposing Obama, but you have no actual ideas of your own? And what was so bad about Russ Feingold?

CNN: And on the "L" portion of our state, we have several other analysts from any other demographic group you can possibly imagine. This is to ensure that whenever we finally get around to finishing our introductions and start our analysis, we can be sure that (with this many people) someone will soon change whatever subject will be brought up, so we never have to come up with anything insightful!

Fox: And in Connecticut House District 13 the Republican managed to win by... wait, we now are joined by GOP minority whip Eric Cantor. Eric, would you say that the Democrats are incompetent and lazy or that they just hate America?

MSNBC: Stay tuned, everyone. We have two more concession speeches of losing Republican candidates to bring you, once we can actually find two more Republicans who lost tonight. There are also still three close Senate races we're keeping an eye on, but we aren't going to tell you which ones or what the vote total is, because then you might change the channel, and we didn't have that many viewers to begin with. We're sure you'd rather hear our overblown opinions than actual election results anyway.

CNN: (Gloria Berger speaking) So, what to make of tonight's events? Donna, do you see tonight's vote as a repudiation of democratic policies or merely as a sign of voter frustration with the economy?

(Donna Brazille): Well, I think that the key to understanding what happened tonight is...(loud music interrupts, and a voice speaks: WE INTERRUPT TO TAKE YOU BACK TO WOLF BLITZER IN FRONT OF OUR GIANT SCREEN OF DOOM WITH THE LATEST EXIT POLLING. WOLF?)

(Wolf Blizter): I have new exit poll results from Canada, which didn't actually vote tonight, but is a lovely place nonetheless. We found that 41 percent of Canadians prefer bacon, but only 38 percent would eat it on a chicken sandwich. But in Toronto, these numbers are reversed.

Fox: We are now joined by Fox News analyst Greta Van Sustern, here to revel in the glory of taking control of the House, which everyone knows is the only legislative body that matters. Greta, do you think tonight's vote reveals that America has finally come to its senses?

(Greta): Well, the first thing I noticed was that Russ Feingold lost his Senate seat in Wisconsin. Which is good, because there isn't a redeeming thing about that guy.

CNN: BREAKING NEWS: exit polling finds that 82 percent of Americans are just thankful to finally have a break from politics, regardless of the ultimate outcome of this election. And the other 18 percent of Americans are sitting on this panel.