As your Tattler tries to absorb and process through his thickened skull the startling and emotional events of Election Day, and the elevation of an intelligent, articulate and capable man to the presidency by a landslide something he hoped for but can still barely believe occurred in Junior Bush’s America For Dummies it seems prudent to turn to lesser trivia while the brain pan simmers.

Laugh-a-Bull Uno: The ambitious yet intellectually deprived Sarah Palin thinks she has a political future. Note to the Pundits mulling this fast melting ice cube: Alaskans are taking a second, more skeptical, look at their Gov, and she is in for several investigations and probable indictments Way Up North for padding her state expense accounts and Troopergate. (No, that hasn’t gone away.) Until recently, she was attached-at-the-hip to convicted felon Sen. Ted Stevens as well, and that connection may soon sprout legs as she was a strong supporter of the Corrupt Old Codpiece and nobody believes she paid for construction work on her own house. (Plus she’s made plenty of enemies from both parties in her home state.) Also, McCain’s campaign staff, blaming her for Mac’s massive drubbing, are about to begin talking on the record; already we’ve read that this Consignment Shop Maverick spent tens of thousands more than initially reported on fancy new duds for her and her family of grasping ‘Wasilla Hillbillies,’ and that Governor Whack Job was something of a pain-in-the-patoot to handle bringing up Bill Ayers without the official McCain go-ahead and such. The raw reality is the GOP is going to have to change stripes in this new age or be ‘left behind’ to ponder the Rapture as a permanent minority party. Keener classic-conservative intellects among the Republicos realize this, and Palin’s winky-dink Christopublican ‘You betcha’ hokum is not part of their plans. The secular Goldwaterites were willing to tolerate the risible Jesus-of-Betty-Bowers freaks as long as the party was winning, but now it’s been humiliatingly buried under a pile of blue votes, and they’re pinning the tail on Moose-Huntin’ Mom and her extremist ilk for scaring off centrist voters. Milder theocrats such as Mike Huckabee will carry on, if they tone down the creepy ecumenical hellfire, but the Armageddon-minded Palinolithics will be purged, even if the GOP has to lose a couple of elections. Sarah will likely run for reelection as governor of the National Ice Box again, get tromped, and retire to dictate her memoirs that will have a hard time finding a publisher. Either that or she’ll get her own reality show on Bravo “Life with the Palins” a mixture of “Hee Haw,” “Queen For a Day” and “The Osbournes” that will go off the air after 13 episodes. (It’s also been rumored that, what with her photogenic face and advanced skill at reading teleprompters, Palin would be a good fit as a game show host how about something like “Here’s Your Boot and Pour” as a vehicle for her talents?) In two years, the answer to “Remember Sarah Palin?” will be “Who?”

Laugh-a-Bull the Second: Another hapless sap who’s on a greased slide to nowhere is the infamous Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher, and I promise this is the last time I’ll ever mention him. It struck me as mighty amusing, though, that at a campaign rally in Ohio for ding-dong GOP Rep. Steve Chabot right before the election, Joe was taunted by a group of real, live licensed plumbers about his lack of certification for the job. In the same AP story, a Toledo, Ohio, building inspector confirmed that anyone doing plumbing work of any kind in Joe’s county must be licensed, so it seems that a) either Joe was working illegally or b) Joe fibbed that he was a plumber but was really an assistant to his boss who did no actual plumbing work himself AKA, a ‘plumber’s helper.’ Well, it doesn’t matter much once his publicist drops him and bulk-packs of his unlistenable country music CD are used to prop open doors at Walmart, Joe will have only one recourse a brief walk-on as Todd’s friend on the Palin family’s new reality-based TV sitcom, “The Wasilla Hillbillies,” which is sure to be cancelled after 13 episodes.

Laugh-a-Bull the Finale; A Prediction: John McCain will retire from the Senate rather than run for reelection in two years. Bored with retirement, he’ll make a stab at the Arizona governor’s chair and lose big, ending his political career. In eight years, he’ll be a dim memory for everyone but political junkies — “Say, didn’t he co-host that TV game show with Sarah Palin or something? What was it ‘Who’s Smarter Than a Maverick’ or something like that.”