Shockingly Awful

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Lest we forget among all the commentary about the historical Obama speech yesterday and the all-important gubernatorial penises...talk about the media going from the sublime to the ridiculous...that crapola was running as crawls under the Obama speech....

Five years ago today, the Bush Administration launched its "Shock and Awe" campaign against Iraq. We watched it on CNN in all its blaze o'glory...kind of like the guy with his eyelids pried open in Clockwork Orange. Captive to the infusion tubes of Mr. Sunshine's first chemo series, there was little to do except soaking up the rat poison that is chemotheraphy while watching the rat poison that is the Bush Administration's modus operandi unfold.

Lies to start, hollow words to carry forward, empty promises unfulfilled. This Current Occupant views the world...and himself...through rose-colored martini glasses of self-delusion, self-aggrandizement, and fantasy beyond the furthest reaches of Orwell or Herbert or Huxley. And we are consigned to live in his nightmare.

And in the subsequent five years, that pumping rat poison persists. Katrina—"heckuva job, Brownie." The run-amok under-regulated mortgage/financial sector/investment bank/Bear Stearns meltdown—"thanks for workin' the weekend, Henry." The "romance" of serving on the front lines.

Not that Bush ever served on the front line of anything, including his own administration. His life as the perpetual cheerleader can't even carry him in this debacle.

But he certainly had help along the way, and that is what we will be marking in reflecting on this fifth-year marker of ruin. Help from a compliant Congress that lay back and forfeited its moral authority too long. Help from an embedded, enabling media that served more as propaganda tool than exerciser of not just the right of the First Amendment, but the responsibility.

And we must each account for our own responsibility and learn from it and resolve to Do Better, to bring about change, to own a piece of this democracy. A fraction of a percent of American families serve in this war. But all of us can step up to the front lines and demand of our government, our Congress, our Presidential candidates...enough. Stop this madness. Stop this path.

Or shall we just go back to the same ol' crapola?