Election crisis? Author sees glass half full.(Chicago Tribune)

Some call the post-election ambiguity a crisis. Some call it a mess.

No surprise, Christopher Hitchens calls it liberating, at least potentially.

The ever-provocative, worldly and left-leaning author-journalist wonders simply, "What Crisis?" in his Dec. 4 column in the Nation, suggesting that what has played out is "an unparalleled opportunity, an occasion for a long-postponed national seminar on democracy and how to get it."

As Hitchens is more than willing to note, he did write a Nov. 15, 1999, opus, subtly titled "Our Rigged Election," in which he facetiously called for international monitors to inspect the "untrustworthiness of computerized voting machines, the …