What always irritates about TV pundits is that when they're proven wrong, they immediately move on to a very self-assured, knowledgeable discussion of what actually happened. Never any penance for getting something wrong.

Well, not on this blog. My analysis of the election was wrong, wrong, wrong. This is the second election in a row that President Bush did better than the standard economic models of voting predicted. [But Bush wasn't on the ballot this year --ed. Oh, bulls@#%$! Even Joe Conason grants that he took the risk of making a heavy investment in this election, and it paid off]. I was wrong for relying on those models even though the 2000 election discredited them.

For penance, I'm swearing off blogging for two weeks. That's right, I'm going cold turkey. It doesn't matter that my area of expertise is international relations and this was American politics; if anything, I screwed up by minimizing the effect of foreign policy on this election, particularly in the Georgia Senate race. So I'm taking the next two weeks to reflect on my errors and try to come back as a better blogger.

The fact that I have to crash on a paper has nothing to do with this....

While I'm away, click on Barry Rubin's essay on why Anti-Americanism in the Middle East has little to do with U.S. policy and lots to do with domestic frustrations. Then reread the essay, replacing "Middle East" with "Western Europe" and see if it applies there!

UPDATE: A month later, InstaPundit recommends doing the same thing with Rubin's essay.