Over at Ankle Biting Pundits, Bull Dog Pundit has published his list of winners and losers for the 2006 election. It’s pretty good, I think, and I’m sure many others will be doing the same thing in the coming days and weeks. May I add a few of my own?

Winners:

* The insurgency in Iraq – Without a doubt the biggest winners of the election. The pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from her base to force a timetable for an American withdrawal will be enormous. Whether it’s through a formal cut-and-run vote, or by simply cutting off or reducing operational funding, the insurgents know the Democrats’ victory virtually assures them of their own.

* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – Iran’s loony President now knows there is NO way President Bush will ever get authorization for military action to take out his country’s nuclear program. If Israel doesn’t have the stones to do it on their own, the way is clear for Iran to attain its goal of producing, and sharing the technology to produce, a nuclear weapon. And the world will suddenly become a much more dangerous place.

* The United Nations – Don’t believe me? Notice how crass it was for crooked sleazeball Kofi Annan’s spokesman to release a statement celebrating the Republican’s loss. They know what it means – the end of John Bolton as Ambassador, and a more sympathetic ear from the Democrats.

* Government Lawyers and Special Councils: Expect the Dems to go full-bore on investigations into pre-Iraq war intelligence, and Iraq-related corruption involving war funding, awarding of contracts, financial mismangement, and funds misappropriation. The Republican-led Congress seemed unwilling to head up their own investigations, not wanting to undercut the Commander-in-Chief during a time of war, but the Democrats will not be so timid. Something that should have been done a long time ago, and a good thing in my view.

* Illegal immigrants: Between the impending push for both “comprehensive immigration reform” (read: guest worker amnesty) and an increase in the minimum wage, the Dems victory is big win for those workers here illegally. Unfortunately, their gain will come at the expense of legal citizens who will find it more difficult to find work as more companies are tempted to look for new ways of keeping their costs and payroll expenses down.

Losers:

* George W. Bush. The true measure of how good a President is, is how he leads when his party is in the minority in Congress. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both knew how to work across party lines to get things done with a thought to their legacies. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think the guy has it in him. As I mentioned yesterday, for all intents and purposes, his Presidency is over.

* Dennis Hastert. Can we all now agree that the soon-to-be-former Speaker of the House and his staff are as politically tone-deaf as John Kerry?

* Don Rumsfeld. He’s only a loser because the President didn’t have the guts or foresight to cut him loose before the election. If he had done so, the Republicans would probably still be in power, and Rumsfeld could have gone out on a fairly high note, relatively-speaking. Instead, he’s a casualty of the elections in a move poorly conceived and executed by his boss.

* RINOs (Republicans In Name Only). Lincoln Chafee, Charlie Bass, et al got theirs in 2006. And good riddance to them. Nebraska’s Chuck Hagel and South Carolina’s Lindsay Graham should take a good look at the Endangered Species List, because in 2008 they’re next.

* Osama bin Laden: OBL is a loser because I think his carcass is lying dead in some cave along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. If he was still alive, I’m sure we would have heard from him commenting on the election in some way, along the way.