Blue is the New Red; One of the hoariest truisms-"What goes around comes around"-is about to get a real workout in Washington as the Democrats take the Hill.

Byline: Todd S. Purdum

On the eve of the election last November, Jon Stewart, the most trusted fake newsman in America, began The Daily Show, on Comedy Central, with an animated musical primer on the next day's festivities, recycled from 2002. Its singsong refrain epitomized Stewart's fashionably wised-up view of what he (or his writers) once called Democracy Inaction:

Midterm elections, they come right in the middle.

Midterm elections, they matter quite a little.

In fact, the 2006 midterms may well be one of those Washington moments that matter quite a lot-a take-stock Tuesday when weather systems that had been building for months suddenly made the wind shift. The Democrats took control of both the House and the Senate for the first time since 1994-and put George W. Bush on the defensive overnight-with the same rallying cry the Republicans had …