Phew. It doesn’t seem quite real. I’m so proud of Nancy Pelosi. Not as a Democrat, but as an agent for change. Forget about traditional notions of left and right, Dem and Repub. There will be plenty of time to squabble over specific social issues later, but our nation is on fire and all of us: left, right, Democrats of all stripes and moderate Republicans, need to roll up our sleeves and stop this lunatic administration. All of us as Americans are sailing together in this ship of state and until about midnight (E.S.T) last night the madmen of the current administration were drunkenly at the helm. Bearing us right towards a waterfall. At full speed.

The growing legion of famous conservatives coming out with books slamming the Bushies is proof that we of the traditional left and right had a common enemy.

That enemy was vanquished last night and all of us have the opportunity of our lifetimes to redirect our nation.

As in almost all things, Bill O’Reilly is both underinformed and just plain wrong. He calls progressives, “America haters.” Having recently moved to Manhattan I took my kids to the Statue of Liberty last week. We were about the only Americans out of hundreds of tourists. It was the first time for all of us and seeing such an iconic image for the first time up close and live stole my breath. As the boat sailed right under her chin I looked up in her face and was surprised by my own tears. An instant later this thought sprang to my brain: “How dare those bastards turn the land of freedom into the land of torture.”

Americans across the political spectrum can agree that our safety is precious, but so is our liberty. The Foxian Bushbots have forgotten what being American really means.

Last night’s great win also reminded me of the last scene in the film, The Candidate. Robert Redford wins, and asks his Karl Rove, “Now what?” His Karl Rove just walks out the room without saying a word.

“Now what?”

Speaker-designate Pelosi’s first hundred hours platform is a thrilling start. But the larger issue is how to knit together the older more liberal Democrats with the gang of more conservative freshmen. Yes, the answer does come from racing to the center, as CNN’s pundits repeated all last night. But the center must be defined by the victors. Old and new Democrats cannot allow themselves to be wedged apart by wedge issues, though if I were Republican strategist I would spend my every waking hour scheming to do just that. The netroots progressives, Howard Dean and the DLC centrists all have so much more in common than not. We need to do what we are not been very good good at at all: coming together. Liberal is not a dirty word and neither is conservative. We need to move beyond labels and focus on values. I think we’d all be surprised by how the values from the left to the right are virtually indistinguishable.

For example, everyone except the Bush Corporation is in favor of aggressively going after the war profiteers. Let’s turn Henry Waxman loose and throw those evil vampires under the jail.

Everyone agrees that the Iraq War is headed only for more failure and misery if we do not radically change course. Most everyone except BuschCo. is now ready to compel the Iraqi government to stand up faster by establishing timetables for U.S. troop redeployment. Centrists who had long opposed such timetables like Barack Obama and Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria have finally come around. I think Zakaria’s plan for the war makes the best out of this waking nightmare and anyone who cares about Iraq and the safety of our soldiers there should study it.

So yes, now comes the hard part. But the hard part is also the fun part.