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To add insult to conservative injury, the right can't even say that its television network won last night. This year's election coverage winner was the typically ratings-starved CNN, not America's most-watched yet somehow not "mainstream" outlet, Fox News. With 8.8 million total viewers over the evening (7pm-2am), 4.4 million of them in the key 25-54 demographic, CNN was firmly triumphant, not a frequent occurrence in the world of cable news. So the Republicans couldn't even get that right! It really was a bloodbath.
Which isn't to say that CNN is the left's network, of course. We'd have to grudgingly say that MSNBC fits that bill, and it is against MSNBC's inherent nature to ever perform well in the ratings. But CNN is certainly a far less right-wing outlet than Fox, with its Karl Rove freakouts and whatnot. (A ratings loser Fox may have been last night, but it was the best theater of the evening.) So just as the day of a new electorate dawns, so too does an era when Fox News's blaring sensationalism doesn't lead the way. (For a night.) It feels good, doesn't it? Bask in the glow for a minute but then move on. We shouldn't gloat too much. About any of this. It's not just that excessive gloating is unbecoming, which it is, it's that that kind of smug poor sportsmanship only serves to set up for future comeuppance and embarrassment.