Pledging to get along

A strange thing happened in the hours following Sen. John Kerry's concession to President George W. Bush: People all over the Web made pledges to change the way they discuss politics, namely the politics of the "other" side.

It's eerie, really. If a man emerged from the woods this morning, he'd never guess we just experienced one of the most contentious presidential elections in U.S. history. And how could he? If he went online, here's what he'd see:

On Instapundit.com: "I will not proclaim that the president is incompetent," "I will not secretly hope that he fails at important goals so that I can elect someone from the other party four years hence," and "I will not use my one semester of Psych 101 to make speculative diagnoses of mental disease or defect in the president."

On Dean's World: "I will refuse to call [the president] traitor, loser, liar, incompetent," "if he does things I disagree with in conducting foreign policy, I will say, 'I respectfully disagree with the President's directions,' but I will do my best to express my dissent respectfully and hope that I am mistaken and that he has made the proper decisions, after all."

On Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine: "After the election results are in, I promise to...support the president, even if I didn't vote for him," "uphold standards of civilized discourse in blogs and in media," "unite as a nation, putting country over party."

What? Did I take a wrong turn on the way to work today and end up in Canada? What happened to the nasty name calling and brutal mud slinging of days past (and by "days past" I do mean "Monday")?

I guess I should be encouraged, but forgive me if I'm a little skeptical of how long this love fest will last. After all, the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, united this country in a manner not seen in decades. And three short years later, we reverted back to ruthless political division. But who knows? Maybe this time, we really can all just get along.