Populists have more fun.

It's the end of the year, time to look back with gratitude.

I want to start off with a great big thank you for conservative pundits and all the fun they've given us since Election Day.

First in line is National Review's Kate O'Beirne, who explained that this was a win for conservatism because a great many of the D'S elected are so conservative themselves. She says half of them are conservatives. If only twice as many Democrats had been elected, it would have proved that there are twice as many conservatives in the country, and this is clear to any thinking person. We might challenge Ms. O'Beirne to explain how the next Republican win is a victory for liberalism.

The reason that O'Beirne and others were able to accept such an absurdity is because they've been listening to George W. Bush for six years and are thus able to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

Another great moment for conservatives in the media this year was highlighted on the November 16 edition of Comedy Central's The Daily Show. Host Jon Stewart addressed a recent remark that CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck made to Representative-elect Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, the first Muslim ever elected to Congress.

Beck said, "I have been nervous about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'" After airing Becks comment, Stewart declared, "Finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking."

Thanks for the late Johnny Apple and the now retired Adam Clymer (who predicted a twenty-eight-seat sweep and the possibility of taking the Senate) for reminding us that The New York Times used to know how to cover politics. So, for that matter, did The Washington Post, now graced only by E. J. Dionne.

While many members of the Washington press corps worried their pretty little heads to a frazzle over Nancy Pelosi's Armani suits and terrible start as Speaker-to-be of the House, they forgot to fret over Trent Lott, who had previously been bounced unceremoniously from the Senate leadership team to which the Republicans just reelected him. They seem not to mind that he had expressed the wish that Strom Thurmond, the segregationist candidate for President, had won in 1948.

Like O'Beirne, many fatuous, self-important commentators of our nation keep telling us that the country did not elect liberals to Congress in November. Unlike O'Beirne, they don't call them conservatives; they call them populists.

Well, gosh all hemlock, a populist! Hey, I am one. Honest. Been a populist so long I'm on my third bottle of Tabasco. Populist. Like Tom Frank of What's the Matter with Kansas? fame. Like Jim Hightower. We can even draw our lines of political genealogy--down from Ralph Yarborough and Bob Eckhardt. We tend to focus less on social issues and more on who's gettiff screwed and who's doin' the screwin'. In my opinion, Americans are not getting screwed by the Republican Party. They are getting screwed by the large corporations that bought and own the Republican Party.

Listen, a populist is someone who is for the people and against the powerful, and so a populist is generally the same as a liberal--except we tend to be more fun.

Molly Ivins writes in this space every month. Her latest book is "Who Let the Dogs In?"