My personal favourite is Texan-bred Steve Earle's album The Revolution Starts … Now. I have it from reliable sources that a few good men and women who had been measuring the metaphorical curtains are taking solace by thumping their fists on their dashboards to Rich Man's War, (Rollin' Into Baghdad wondering' how he got this far/Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man's war); F the CC – an anthemic blast at the Federal Communications Commission, which is doggedly fining anyone who dirties the airwaves with obscenities before bedtime (A democracy don't work that way/I can say anything I want to say); or Condi Condi, a scathing, raunchy and very politically incorrect love song apparently written for Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's nominee to be secretary of state, though the lyrics misspell her forename, perhaps as a get-out clause for the country-rocker's ironic and vulgar attempt at calypso. (Listen to me Condi, don't be afraid, I come here tonight to chase your blues away, I'll never hurt you, I'll treat you right, Oh Condaleeza won't you come out tonight.)

Swinging over to New York, where you might expect to find a few Bush-bashers, comedian Jon Stewart helpfully released some Democrat therapy in hardback form before the elections. Called America (The Book), A Citizens' Guide to Democracy Inaction (with a foreword by Thomas Jefferson), it includes helpful factoids like: "If the President were the longest recorded flight by a chicken, he would be thirteen seconds."

Those Democrats who require nightly medication are staying up to watch Jon Stewart in action each night at 11 p.m. And on Wednesdays, there is West Wing, the drama about a fictitious president played by Martin Sheen who is basically a Democrat's fantasy of the ideal president, that is a cross between John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton without the womanizing. Unlike Mr Bush, so far, at any rate, and like Mr Clinton, Mr Sheen even spends days bashing Israeli and Palestinian heads together in search of a Middle East peace deal.

If the above tonics fail to do the trick, Democrats could do worse than remember that they do not have to deal with Iraq, or Fallujah, or terrorism, for at least four years.

They can also take relief in knowing that the Pentagon has decided to deploy 11 new "Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams" who will be fired up and ready to spring into action in the event of an attack in the capital, Delaware, Guam, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, US Virgin Islands, Vermont or Wyoming.

They can take a trip to Little Rock, Arkansas, to Bill Clinton's new library. Hopefully it will rain less than it did at the opening, when Mr Clinton looked like he had just eaten a mouthful of salt, despite Bono's attempts to take his mind off the downpour.

Democrats should be grateful too that they don't have to find a speechwriter to dream up a new address to the turkey traditionally pardoned by the president before Thanksgiving.

This year Mr Bush spared two White House turkeys, simultaneously cracking a few tiresome jokes about the election campaign. "It was a close race. You might say it was neck and neck," he said. He even took a swipe at the "527" group called Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, who spread muck about John Kerry's Vietnam War record. "It was a tough contest, and it turned out some 527 organisations got involved, including Barnyard Animals for Truth," said Mr Bush. Finally, he turned the tables on filmmaker Michael Moore's scathing account of the president's response to the September 11 attacks called Fahrenheit 9/11, joking: "There was a scurrilous film that came out, Fahrenheit 375 Degrees At 10 Minutes Per Pound."

The turkeys may have less to be grateful for. The fowl the president pardoned last year died within three months because of the growth drugs it had been fed, according to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Finally, Democrats should take solace in knowing they will never have to be kissed by the president, unlike Dr Rice, on whose cheek he planted a big soggy one as he announced her nomination to be secretary of state. (Does this explain the bizarre comment she made in April at an off-the-record dinner with the New York Times publisher? The New York magazine subsequently reported that she said: "As I was telling my husb…" then stopped and said, "As I was telling President Bush." One columnist suggested the comments were wrongly reported as happening one after the other and that she was really trying to cover up for behind-the-scenes contacts with Hezbollah. But it is much more fun to speculate she has a Freudian attachment to the president.)

Dr Rice came off lightly in the presidential saliva department, however. Pity poor Margaret Spellings. She received an ultra-European smacker on the lips when Mr Bush nominated her to be his new secretary of education.