Remember "Be a Good Sport?"

When I was a kid, if you lost, you were expected to put your best face on it, shake hands with the other side, and try to win the next time. If you won, you weren't supposed to do a chicken dance and mock the losers. It was called "being a good sport."

It is eminently clear that Bush has won. He's up about 140,000 votes in Ohio, with all precincts counted. There are some number of provisional ballots, and a lesser number of absentee ballots in the mail. If you ignore the absentees, which are likely to favor Bush, and assume that there really are 250,000 provisional ballots, and all will ultimately be counted, the election is still over. Kerry would have to get over 56 per cent of the vote. Even if there is some skewing this is unlikely. If a more realistic total of 200,000 provisional ballots is counted, Kerry would have to get 70 per cent to win, with no military absentees. If the 175,000 figure is correct, and all the provisionals are counted, Kerry would have to get 80 per cent, with no military absentees. In short, it's ALL OVER.

Moreover, Pennsylvania, where Philadelphia is hardly immune to voter fraud, went for Kerry by a lesser margin than Ohio. How many provisional ballots and absentees are there in Pennsylvania? Yet there's not a peep out of anyone about this state.

Some caution on the part of the networks and papers was wise. The exit polling was apparently useless, and premature calls in Florida last time discouraged voters in the panhandle. But at this point Ohio, Nevada, Iowa and New Mexico all have clear Bush leads, and both the Dems and their allies in the MSM are pretending there's something left to decide in this election. This in the face of a convincing and incontestable popular vote majority for W. Time to stop the bitter, divisive approach and face the facts.

If there were a genuine possibility of victory, or real signs of widespread cheating, not conceding early makes some sense. Here, though, the MSM and the Dems simply look stupid and petty. In short, they are not being good sports. This attitude reflects the deep bitterness found on the left. Not virtuous, not smart. Be a good sport, dammit.