Method to the madness

It was exactly three weeks ago (Wednesday) that Americans woke up (if they had bothered to go to sleep) to discover that a President had not been elected on Election Day. Little did we know that this anomaly was just the beginning.

Such stress and strangeness can be dealt with only on a one- day-at-a-time basis. And that is just what the country is doing. Quite well, thank you, despite what some extremists, pedants and Chickens Little might think. Or hope. America is not on the verge of a civil war. Neither are the foundations of our democracy cracking under the continuing strain.

We are in the middle of one grand civics lesson with a few law school lectures thrown in. If nothing else, the American public is going to emerge from this historic event with a keener sense of how its government operates, what its Constitution says and how easily one can go cross-eyed looking at a chad.

-- The Daily News, New York