Empty Calories


I guess you've already read this article/.pdf or the reprint over at Juan Cole's site that throws a big bucket of cold water all over any insistance from Team Bush that things are somehow improving for their defining project a/k/a Operation-It-Ain't-Just-a-River-in-Egypt. Aside from the ongoing necessity for turning official state visits into official state secrets--which, in any reality-based assessment, would be a big red flag indicating either paranoid absurdity or absolute cluster-fuck--the memo makes it awfully clear--no pun intended--that circumstances in Mesopotamia are just that: awful to an almost impossible to imagine degree.

You know, initially I was going to entitle this post something like "Would You Trust Your Car Mechanic With Open-Heart Surgery?..." but I thought that would be unfair to all the tradesmen who recognize both their skill sets AND limitations. Unfortunately, that sort of wisdom seems utterly lost on the overgrown, brats-on-steroids we've got running things...who daily cause my outrage meter to peg off-the-scale. Late last week and over the weekend, it was the latest spectacle of Karl Rove, well, behaving like he always does, mixing and matching the whininess of a spoiled three year old with chickenhawk bravado. Think Progress also documents more lunacy from Tony Snow--everything from "the press is focused too much on kidnapped American soldiers" to contradicting his administration on the Taliban. And Big Time continues to explore his inner, stubborn, lunatic old man, insisting that the insurgency...is in it's last throes. Has anyone checked up on the side effects of his meds?

Meanwhile, the "opposition" continues to play Berry Gordy to the public's Marvin Gaye: insisting on safe, trite material when it's freaking obvious that a change is needed...a change that's far less "radical" than these so called "leaders" think.

"Change" in this case is a relatively simple matter of putting some adults in charge. Whether you want to give Team Bush enough credit to call them an example of a self-fulfilling "Lord of the Flies" or consider them more a poorly acted version of an old Star Trek plot (albeit with horrible, and deadly consequences), the truth is that we've got an administration consisting of people who either never have grown up...or decided, for one reason or another, to explore their inner juvenile...at the expense of the country.

Either way, it makes meaningful debate almost impossible--particularly when the "referees," i.e., the media, have thrown in with the perpetual high-schoolers (or have their heads firmly planted up their backsides). And, worse still, high-schoolers, when they aren't given any kind of limits, are quite capable of behavior that's at best reckless, at worst, dangerous, and not just to themselves.

Two years ago, I actually had the chance to speak to candidate John Kerry for a second or so while he shook my hand. I told him he should emphasize "competence," not realizing that was Mike Dukakis', ahem, losing message in 1988...

Still...it's not like the Kerry campaign couldn't have afforded--and looked at--a copy of Roget's Thesaurus. And I continue to wonder why Democrats in general are afraid to CHALLENGE twitnuts like Team Bush, particularly when it comes to the Mesopotamian black hole on the one hand...and their twin incompetence on pressing domestic issues like Gulf Coast recovery on the other. I mean, it's not like they can even claim some sort of Midas-like golden touch--everything THEY handle turns to lead...or rust.

They're twits, for chrissakes. In other words, it shouldn't be THAT difficult to come up with a winning strategy. And I'll keep pressing for some variant on "time to put the adults in charge." Call for taking away their keys, for grounding them, etc. etc. (and make them react, preferably with juvenile rage, which has the benefit of reinforcing the point)...but above all, get them outta there before they can do more damage.