A week on from America's bad decision, and I haven't really had chance to write about it. Now I think, why bother, really? Better informed and better motivated people have already said it all.

I will say this, though: the night itself was one of the bleakest experiences I've ever had in a BBC newsroom.

I'd volunteered to work the night shift and contribute to the coverage as the results came in. I was pumped, I was excited. And, perhaps surprisingly, this was the first Presidential election I'd seen run its course.

For someone raised on the grand British General Election, with all its crowded town halls, drunken party supporters, and memorable victory speeches this was going to be a new experience.

Of course, early on I was putting all my hopes in the curse of the Redskins and various other superstitions that were calling the election for Kerry. It had to go our way.

But as the hours ticked by, and the networks called the projected result in each state, we could see that the night was playing out all too similarly to 2000, just with any vote-rigging better hidden. And that could only point in one direction.

Doom.

By the time California and the Pacific North West pitched in on the side of Good, even the newsroom's resident American had dropped his regular refrain of "It's too early to call".

And the US election - or at least this one - has none of the drama of a British vote. Just a never-ending stream of perma-grinning talking heads, spinning results both good and bad. But no humanity, no money shot, so to speak. Until someone looks like winning the whole deal, it's just all speculation and conjecture played out in television studios. By the time things really started happening, I was at home. Or, more accurately, in the pub. And that made the red tide of George W Bush all the more difficult to cope with.

So yeah, I can retread the stuff about how it's left a divided states of America - but there's really nothing new there. Very little changed hands on election night. Iowa and New Mexico turned to Bush, New Hampshire swapped sides to Kerry - but then it came as a surprise to many that the state wasn't considered a Democratic safe seat. I've probably been watching too much West Wing. So the same states were shouting the same things as always - everyone just shouted a lot louder this time.

Then there's the doom-mongering. Bush winning the popular vote. More Republicans in the House and the Senate. Likely vacancies in the Supreme Court opening the door for evangelical nutters to legislate - bye bye Roe vs Wade and all that.

Add likely chaos in the Democratic party as it picks up the pieces in replacing defeated Senate leader Tom Daschle, and you've got a mouth-watering opportunity to fashion a very conservative US.

Bush may say he's going to reach out to Democrats in a bid to heal America's bitter divisions - but will he? Does he really need to? Has this man ever shown himself to do the right thing? Has he really proven himself to be more than a neo-con puppet? He went against global opinion enough times in his first term to show that he doesn't really care what other people think - with four more years and no case to answer, is he really going to give a damn about opinions on the liberal east and west coasts?

Call me a pessimist, but I'm guessing no.

To be continued...