So the lead article's headline on Yahoo! News is this:
Exit Polls: Blair Wins Historic Third Term
By ROBERT BARR { Har, Har, Har }, Associated Press Writer
2 minutes ago
Portions of the news story after the jump, with my interjected smart-aleck asides . . .
LONDON - Tony Blair won a historic third term as prime minister Thursday but his Labour Party suffered a sharply reduced parliamentary majority in apparent punishment for going to war in Iraq,
according to projections based on exit polls. A chastened Blair said "we will have to respond to that sensibly and wisely."
Such an outcome, if confirmed by the actual vote count, could set the stage for Blair to be replaced in midterm by a party rival such as Gordon Brown. As Treasury chief, Brown was widely credited for the strong economy that appears to have clinched Labour's victory, outweighing the bitterness many voters said they felt over Iraq.
Media irony much? I thought exit polls had been determined to be crystal ball territory. I thought television stations' projections didn't matter anymore. Hmph.
The BBC and ITV television stations projected Labour would win 358 seats in the 646-seat parliament, ahead of the Conservatives with 209. The Liberal Democrats -- the only party to have opposed the Iraq war -- were projected in third place with 53 seats, for them a disappointing gain of two seats.
The television projections, based on a survey of more than 16,000 voters in 115 closely contested districts, showed Labour with 37 percent of the popular vote, the lowest winning share ever.
If they are correct that Labour's majority will decline from the current 161 seats to 68, Blair could face difficulties controlling a faction of his party deeply disillusioned with his leadership, especially over Iraq.
Important action item: Watch for the final results. Will they mirror the exit polls? Or will exit polls strangely be wrong?
Blair acknowledged the exit polls.
Exit polls are always right! Right? Right?
The White House reacted cautiously. President Bush was expected to make a call to Blair once the vote count became clearer, aides said.
Lesson No 1: Exit polls are only wrong when George W Bush is the candidate. Otherwise, they are right.
Counting was to continue through the night, and the winner would not be officially confirmed at least until Friday morning.
Did Mr Howard concede at midnight? CERTAINLY not.
Iraq loomed large in voters' thinking.
<snip>
Democratic Party volunteers from the United States joined Blair's campaign, including Stan Greenberg, Zack Exley, Bob Shrum and Karen Hicks.
Lessons learned? Hmmm.
In New York, two small makeshift grenades exploded early Thursday outside a building housing the British Consulate. The blast caused minor damage and no injuries.
The effect of a 'terror incident' on the election? Apparently none. A better question - or two: Who exactly was behind that, and why did it happen in AMERICA instead of Britain?! Odd, that. Double-hmph.