I'm stuck in an Annapolis harbor on a sailboat with three others: a Republican, a Reagan Democrat, and a young woman who, whenever the gin comes out and the politics talk starts, puts on her headphones and goes to her cabin. Oh, how I envy her.

And this morning I'm sick at heart, as my friend Pat McGuire was voted out of office yesterday in favor of a Tea Party candidate, surely as part of a "throw the bums out" wave.

I'm not going to try to convince you of the injustice of it all. I just know in my shoes that this guy was an example, however rare, of what's absolutely and utterly right in government. Smart, sensitive, inquisitive, caring-about-his-constituents-to-the-point-of-doting.

And he was thrown out with the bath water by an insensate electorate.

Pass the gin, fellows. And the headphones too, please.