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Mid-terms blog of blogs

• The Reporters
• 9 Nov 06, 11:33 AM

, blogging at the National Review, puts a brave face on the Republicans' election defeat: "Sometimes you'll be convinced you have fantastic arguments, and the other guy doesn't know what he's talking about. And yet sometimes they choose the other guy. Sometimes you lose. It stinks, but it happens."

greets the nomination of Bob Gates as Donald Rumsfeld's replacement at the Pentagon with some disbelief, recalling his days as CIA chief while new Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega headed the Sandinista rebels during the 1980s. "History doesn’t just repeat itself; it repeats itself with the same exact people."

welcomes the new-look Congress, calling the Democrats' win "a glimmer of light after being lost in the forest for two long years". But he is quick to assert that the vote was really an anti-Republican protest, not a pro-Democrat swing.

, though, laments the Democratic rise, insisting that just because core Republican voters were upset with President Bush, there was no need to put "the worst of the worst" into leadership positions.