Any way you slice it, Tuesday’s election was a kick in the gut for President Bush and the Republicans. The Democrats, on the other hand, had a great day at the track, hitting the trifecta of both houses of Congress plus the head of Donald Rumsfeld on a platter. After sorting through the wreckage, the GOP will have some soul searching to do to find out how to recover in time for 2008.

What happened? Simply put, the Republicans blew it. A perfect storm of scandals (revved up by the media, but scandals nonetheless), the Iraq War, and inept campaigns (that means you, George Allen) swept the Democrats to victory.

To be fair, the D’s played a great hand. They fielded some conservative “Blue Dog” candidates, painted every Republican opponent – even those with no experience at the federal level – as being for the war, and mumbled over the details of their actual plan.

Game. Set. Match. The House will now come to order, Speaker Pelosi presiding (insert shuddering here).

Joining Alec Baldwin and Michael Moore in the champagne popping and backslapping was just about every Bush hater around the globe - the “we like Americans, but hate your president” crowd. In an unusual move, 200 Socialist members of the European Parliament touted the American election results as “the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world.” Newspaper editorials were similarly giddy over the outcome, happy that the “cowboy” had finally been dealt a dose of humility.

Being something of a sixty-year nightmare themselves, socialists across the pond have a lot of nerve phrasing their glee in such a manner. It is American “cowboys,” after all, that have afforded Europe the very luxury of their welfare state lifestyles. Ronald Reagan, derided at the time much as George Bush is now, made nuclear deterrence a cornerstone of his foreign policy, providing Europe with a tacit umbrella of protection. The current president’s foray in Iraq, agree with it or not, has at the very least been a diversion for every jihadist willing to strap TNT to his chest and blow up some infidels. It is certainly better to lure them into Iraq to take on men with M-16’s rather than have them climbing aboard commuter trains in Madrid or London. (There is something to be said for five years without a domestic terror incident in the US.)

Another point of contention between Europeans and the Bush administration has been the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. With three meals per day (detainees gain an average of 18 pounds), access to top-notch medical care, and a vast library of books available, one wonders what is missing? Perhaps turn down service and a halal mint on the pillow?

Despite the histrionic indignation over treating terrorist prisoners like, well, terrorist prisoners, Europe’s governments have fought every attempt to have their own countrymen repatriated from Gitmo. London turned down 10 former British residents, arguing that it would be too expensive to keep them under surveillance. Ditto Berlin, which in August permitted the return of a Turkish national raised in Germany…four years after turning down a US proposal to release him.

The State Department’s chief legal adviser, John Bellinger III, summed it up nicely: "In practical terms, it's not enough to say, 'Guantanamo should be closed,' without suggesting the next sentence: What do you do with the people who are there?"

Excellent question. I doubt that the European elite, much better at complaining than making hard choices or proposing alternatives, care to field that one. Indeed, our erstwhile allies have made an art form of criticizing from the bench. When offered a ball and glove, however, they usually decline. Why bother getting your uniform dirty when you don’t have to?

Which brings it back to the Democrats. They have also had the luxury of critiquing the president’s every move from the safety of the sidelines. After trumpeting for years that they would do things “differently” or “smarter,” we finally get to see exactly what that means.

Let’s hope they get it right, because the stakes have never been higher.