They Tell Me Hell's Hotter Than Waco

...but I have my doubts.

Five of us piled into my truck at 7:45 on Saturday and headed to Camp Casey. It was a great trip up, filled with deep discussion and music from Eliza Gilkyson.

We got to the Camp Casey area a little after 11 and the vibe was completely different from last time. The 5-7 pro-Bush protesters across the road had swollen to about 80. The 125 or so anti-Bush diehards at Casey 1 were less contemplative than before, and more rowdy. Someone had a guitar and would play a riff and come up with a few lines that the anti-war crowd would parrot. The people across the road would then yell something back at them, throw out some insults and catcalls, and the anti-war crowd would respond.

It looked to me to be only a matter of time 'til there was trouble, so after about an hour or so, we left. As we left a guy was walking past me on the other side of the road with a sign: "Repent you treasonous bastards." I saw red.

"Hey! I'm not a bastard."
"Yeah you are."
I looked at him a minute. He was dressed in the standard redneck uniform; jeans and a cowboy hat. So I had a very minor epiphany.

"Did your mama raise you to hold a sign with a cussword on it?"

He looked uncomfortable and moved on. If logic doesn't work, what the hell--give shame a try. I don't think I kept him from holding the sign up, but I know I made him think. Might've been the first time that week for him...

We went over the Camp Casey II about 3 miles away. The vibe was far different...kind of like a pep rally at Woodstock, if that makes sense. I read that the whipped-meringue-with-peaks-looking tent held 2000 people, and it was full to overflowing. All age groups were there, and all were VERY hot.

Iraq war veterans were speaking passionately against the war when we walked up. Shortly afterward, Cindy Sheehan took the stage. She's the face of the anti-war movement, and the crowd loved her. I was surprised and delighted to see Joan Baez had stuck around. She still looks luminous and...well, almost sexy at 60-whatever she is. She sang Joe Hill and the Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and then sat on the stage leaning against Cindy, holding her hand. It was very sweet.

My wife recognized Laura Flanders, the Air America radio host, so we said hi to her and talked to her for several minutes. We even snapped a couple of pictures with her. She's as pleasant and smart in person as she is on the air.

We had wanted to go to the Crawford Peace House, so we headed to town. There was lots of Pro-Bush action on the very busy Crawford streets, but nothing organized. We found a parking space and were walking to the Peace House when I noticed a life-sized photo of George W. Bush with a sign below it saying "Political Quackmire." I asked the people if they minded if we took a picture and they said that was fine. We posed next to him, me with my thumb down. Suddenly the guy jumps in front of us waving his arms and yelling and basically going nuts. Turns out he's a GW Bush fan. He grabbed my daughter's hand and kinda pushed her away and I was like "Hey buddy, that's not necessary..." He said something like "typical liberals!" My wife had to urge me to move on. It wouldn't do to have a fight next to the Peace House after all...

The question I haven't figured out is why a fan of Bush would have that "political quackmire" sign below him. I'll bet I wasn't the only one to mistake his allegiance.

The Crawford Peace House is an old wooden place with a nice grounds and a neat little stone labryinth that is supposed to help you meditate on peace. The place was rockin' on Saturday, so not a lot of peace to be had. Some rectal orifices from the University of Texas were standing across the road taunting peace folks, to little avail.

Laura Flanders had arrived at the place and was, with help, setting up an audio edit station on the floor to try and get her show together. She was quite disappointed when we told her we weren't going to stick around for her show, but were heading back home. We promised to call in.

We left Crawford knowing that that poor little town will be so happy when el Presidente's vacation is over and they can return to some kind of normal.

I did indeed call in to Laura Flanders' show and we talked for several minutes about our experiences out at Camp Casey. That's twice in two weeks that I've been on national radio...I think I should ask someone for my own show!

A word in closing, and something that was harder to grasp during this visit than our first: this is all about the war, and the soldiers dying. I think the anti-war movement is very important right now. The president, and the right wing need to know they have significant opposition. If they don't, they'll continue to make horrible decisions that we all will pay for. They need to understand the concept of accountability. The best way we can make all that happen is to write our representatives. To speak out. To give money. To sign petitions. To get involved. I wouldn't ever ask you to do something you can't, but please: do what you can. Thanks!

Heading Back To Crawford

We'll be on the road by 7:30 heading for the sweatbath at Crawford.

Cindy Sheehan was on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight. Bill tried to throw her a couple of hardballs, but she did really well anyway. For this nobody of a housewife, she's damned smart, and suprisingly quick on the uptake. When he was done with her he told her "a straight up thanks for what you're doing." Looks like Bill's a fan, too.

I don't want to suggest I'm fawning over Cindy Sheehan. I am quite grateful that someone emerged to be the face of the anti-war movement. She didn't emerge as a carefully chosen spokesmodel. She wasn't the choice of a PR firm somewhere. She was just a mother outraged at why her son had to die.

So This time five of us go: my wife and daughter and myself, plus my daughter's gymnastics team partner and her mother. They've been kinda cheering us on from the sidelines, and just decided to jump in. I'm real happy about that.

It'll be a looooong day. About 3 & 1/2 hours up and 3 & 1/2 hours back, plus hours and hours in the heat. It could be contentious. The YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR US CINDY caravan is supposed to get there tomorrow as well. Wish us luck.

Hope

I've been busier than I like to be of late, and I don't see any signs of that lifting. I noticed that it's been a week since I posted, which is way too long. Apologies to those who come here often hoping to read a little something that gives you grist for your thought mill. Let's see what I can do as I get ready for work.

There have been a few daunting things that have bothered me personally recently. I of course, wish Cindy Sheehan's mom wouldn't have been taken ill and hope for her speedy recovery. I'd love to have seen Cindy been able to stay on in Crawford and keep up the good fight. She's done what she's got to do, and there are increasing numbers of veterans and their families who have arrived at Camp Casey, so at least the work continues.

What I don't like is some of the rhetoric that's flying around. I watched an interview with Mark Williams--yet another far right wingnut radio host. He's just returned from Iraq and he's full of himself, full of bluster (and full of something smelling quite unlike bluster). He's going to take a convoy of buses to Crawford in his YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR ME CINDY tour.

I don't like this stuff. It moves beyond the protest standpoint to the let's cause a confrontation standpoint, or the let's inspire the idiot weirdos standpoint. As we found out with Larry Northern when he ran over hundreds of crosses and American flags at Camp Casey, the uber-patriotic can be inspired to idiocy in their fervor. And when I listened to the Mark Williams interview on MSNBC, it was full of that blinded-by-their-own-rhetoric bluster that is about as ugly as it is energetic.

Extreme vanity + extreme energy=trouble.

As I was walking in downtown San Antonio the other day, I came across one of those hip-high bushes full of the canary yellow flowers. They're called Esperanza, which is the Spanish word for hope. I don't know the history of why the bush was named esperanza, but I speculate this: in the absolute heat of summer, when just getting through the day is a major effort in South Texas, there is a bush that inspires such hope...such a sense that we'll all persevere and overcome that which is now so difficult.

So I offer that to you in a time where the words are flying too fast, with too much passion and too little sense...that we'll get through this, the temperatures will fall and the seasons will bring soothing change. Esperanza. Hope.

I Meet Cindy Sheehan

After we'd been at Camp Casey for most of an hour and had looked at most of the booths, done a lot of people-watching, and generally soaked up the ambience, I came across Cindy Sheehan. She was off to the side of the road in a lawn chair, one or two people to her side, and another couple in front of her. She looked exactly like she did on TV, and remarkably approachable.

I knew my wife would want to meet her, so I walked the 50 or so yards across the length of the camp to tell her. "Cindy's over there." "Really?" she said as she turned to walk Cindyward. I think most all of us have a fascination with celebrity, even that which has been arrived at in so circuitous a fashion.

We kinda walked over in that direction, and that's about the time my daughter started crying. I've blogged about this previously, but essentially she was overwhelmed by the emotion--the crosses representing the fallen soldiers, the fresh-scrubbed young but now dead young people with faces looking back at us, not at the time the pictures were made knowing what their fates would be. And now there was Cindy. This woman who had started it all out of rage and love and the desire to save some lives.

My daughter and I got diverted with that emotion for a while as my wife took a few pictures. By the time I worked my way back to Ms. Sheehan, she was sitting in the back seat of her van, taking a break in the shade. I'm not a physical person--I tend to avoid touch with those I don't know. But when I walked up her hand was splayed across her lower thigh and I just reached out and put my hand on it, as if that were normal for me to do.

"Cindy, I'd like to thank you for doing what you're doing. I think it's a great thing, and it means a lot to me." She took her hand out from under mine and grasped it affectionately with both of hers. Her green eyes look right into mine, and she smiled gently. She thanked me for coming to Crawford, and for my support. I told her that I was wishing her strength, because I knew this must be really hard.

She looked down at our joined hands and said it a world-weary way "Yes, it's been really hard." Then she looked back up at me and said "But it's nothing compared to what our soldiers are going through, or the Iraqi people."

"Yeah, that's true. Good luck to you; we're behind you." She thanked me and I turned and left, more convinced than before I came that Ms. Sheehan was the person she seemed to be.

In the days since I've been back I now hear that her husband has filed for divorce. A local rancher has fired a shotgun in the air while drinking beer, just for fun. Just to be intimidating. And then a Waco man dragged a pipe behind his pickup mowing down hundreds of the crosses that represented the soldiers who have given their lives in the war.

I now know that the difficulty I could see she was feeling then was just the tip of the iceberg. And it may be just a fraction of what's to come. As we all think about our trials, wish some energy her way. She could surely use it.

And now as I'm about to publish this, I find that the cousin of the man who was shooting a shotgun nearby has volunteered to house Camp Casey at his property. The whole thing will be moved and they'll no longer be sleeping in ditches and be so vulnerable to whatever misguided psycho might do to them. I'm pleased and relieved for Cindy.

If you can't make the trip to Crawford, and for the latest in goings-on at Camp Casey, go here.

Pro-Bush Protester Shows What A Class Act He Is

We'd arrived at Camp Casey at about 12:45 on Saturday, August 13th a few miles outside of Crawford where Cindy Sheehan is holding her vigil to get a meeting with President Bush. We were surprised that there were only 100 or so people there, including 15 or so Department of Public Safety and other law enforcement. We passed the immature, taunting signs of the 5 pro-Bush protesters who were just across the small county road from Camp Casey.

The camp was erected along the periphery of a half acre triangle of grass that was where two country roads met at an odd angle. There wasn’t a lot of shade, but a few hackberrys cooled the few who could fit in their shade.

We began to walk around, looking at the various booths that had been put up. Code Pink was there, the Gold Star Families were there. Even PETA.

Seeing a tarp over three tents that were set up in the midst of many of the crosses, we headed that direction. There was a metal sculpture of the United States out of which was carved the words "The US in Iraq." In chalk on to the side it said "1841, 13,538." Those were the dead and wounded Americans.

Suddenly my daughter turned and I could see she was crying profusely. I gave her a hug and she continued sobbing. "Are you okay? Why are you crying?" She didn't try to voice anything, but just hugged me back. Finally I asked "So...does it just seem real now? Is that it?" She nodded her head yes and continued to cry.

It was about then I noticed that a steady line of cars were arriving. I looked on the road back to Crawford, and there were bumper-to-bumper cars leading back a good 3/4 mile. Many of the anti-war protesters were gathering at a place where the cars would drive by to greet them and yell to them and flash the peace sign. A very unofficial greeting committee. Diana and I walked over and started doing the same. She continued to cry. I told her I was going to get some water from the truck, and did.

As I approached where my daughter had been, I noticed the Viet Nam vet hugging her, and was touched by that. A few minutes later I approached and noticed she was flashing motorists the peace sign, and continued to cry. This was highly unusual for our rugged, resilient daughter, so I hugged her too.

“See that guy over there?” She pointed to the 5 pro-Bush guys. “Yeah.” “He was making fun of me for crying.” I couldn’t believe it. She said he was calling her crybaby. What the idiot across the road doesn’t know is that my daughter rides a 1200-pound horse, putting in brutally-long hours at the stable, has a wall full of ribbons for the shows she's won, and is in some ways far more macho than I am. She doesn’t know a lot about fear.

What he also didn’t know was whether or not that girl across the road had a brother who had died in Iraq. It probably didn’t even cross his mind. As a barometer of the class of the other 4 protesters, none of them had told him to stop taunting.

After the music by folksinger Eliza Gilkyson and speeches by several people, including Cindy Sheehan, we started heading back to the truck. We got separated, going different ways. When I spoke to my daughter next she told me the protester did it again. “There’s that crybaby!”

It's not fair to judge the opposition by the worst of its kind. I hope you'll forgive me though, if I do precisely that.

Part IV: I meet Cindy

Viet Nam Vet Lost a Leg, But Not His Heart

We'd been at the Cindy Sheehan's Camp Casey outside of Crawford Texas for about 45 minutes. My wife and 16 year-old daughter and I had milled through the booths, saw dozens of pictures of fallen American Soldiers, and I'd met Eliza Gilkyson. Eliza is a folksinger who, if you haven't yet discovered her, please do. And if you're one of those roll-your-eyes-at-folk-music types, you haven't discovered Eliza.

She had her guitar in the bed of a pickup, and an amp nearby and I said with a smile "Is that thing here for a reason?" "Yeah, I'm gonna play a few songs in a little bit." "Excellent." I walked toward the road where I saw my family.

I passed a guy with a ball cap with silver-tipped brown hair and a great big blonde walrus moustache. He was proudly holding a Veterans Against the War flag. As I walked by I said "We need to see more of your type here!" He took that as an invitation to speak, and yes, he did speak.

He wasn't fond of Bush or his administration for the cuts to benefits for veterans. He stated clearly his support for the soldiers, but not of the administration which sent them there. His clear blue eyes and freckled skin (the kind you see on a lot of redheads) were intense and vivid. He spoke animatedly without the accent of a Texan. His name was Tim Origer from Santa Fe, and spent only a month in the DMZ zone in Viet Nam.

"So you were in the war?" I asked. "Well, yeah..." He looked down toward his legs. His left one wasn't there, replaced by some kind of steel pivoting limb with a shoe that allowed him to walk. I'd been standing about 2 feet from him for several minutes, deep in conversation and hadn't even noticed.

He told us about the rocket that destroyed the artillary battery he was manning, and sent him flying 40 feet up the hill. If I understood him correctly, he actually remembered the event, and that it wasn't terribly unpleasant. But then a flare got shot directly into his leg as he lay there, burning and destroying his leg, and turning it all into a hellish nightmare of pain.

My family listened to the story intently, trying, but failing to comprehend the horror of what he'd been through. We transitioned to another subject.

"I like your button--where'd you get it?" my daughter asked. It was a skull and cross-bones on a black field, with W's face where the skull should have been. He pointed to a guy who had a bag of them, and that guy gave us one. I tried to give Tim a few bucks for it and he refused. Finally I stuffed the bills into his compadre's pocket. Hell, it cost them money to produce the buttons. Why not give them something to at least meet their costs?

A while later I went to get water, and more people were arriving. A line of people had formed to wave and greet the cars as they got there. As I walked back I saw that my daughter was crying, overwhelmed by the moment. Standing next to her was Tim, still waving his flag with one arm, but the other was around my daughter. She later said he hugged her for several minutes, and that it was a real help for her.

Part III: a Pro-Bush Protester Shows What He's Made Of

Crawford: Here We Come

My wife's got Sirius radio and was listening to an interview with Cindy Sheehan about her Crawford vigil after having picked up my daughter at the stable. Not much for politics, my daughter hates talk radio. But after a few minutes, she turned up the volume and listened intently. After it was done, she told her mom she wanted to go to Crawford.

Saturday morning we headed out for the 400-mile round-trip, full of questions as to what lay ahead. Crawford is out in pleasant, slightly rolling farmland with occasional woods. The town itself was fairly typical small-town Texas. My wife noticed a blood drive, so we thought "what the heck?"

The guy overseeing the blood drive was happy to see us, though had I to guess, I'd guess his feelings about Bush to be quite un-similar to mine. He was much like so many in this country: a very pleasant, optimistic guy who continues to assume the best about Bush.

After giving blood we headed out to the ranch. We finally could see some kind of a gathering in an area where a half-acre triangle of grass marked where a pair of roads met at an odd angle. About a quarter mile away though, rows of little white crosses appeard, stretching toward what's come to be called Camp Casey. The crosses were placed there, one apiece for the American soldiers who have died in Iraq. They set an appropriately somber tone as you drive up, a reminder that this isn't about Bush, this isn't so much about protest, and it isn't really about Cindy Sheehan. It's about those who have given their lives because George Bush started this war.

As we drove by and looked for a place to park, I was surprised there were so few people there, surely no more than a 100 or so. that would include the 15 or so Department of Public Safety officers and local Sheriff's contingent. Parking was quite easy, and as we walked back to the triangle of grass, I noticed the opposition protesters across the little 2-lane county road. The most obnoxious sign was this one:

Sheehanistan: American Haters Welcome

Lots of hate simmering over there ("cut and run traitors," "don't dishonor our troops"). I really hated to see the ignorance parading before me. I stopped and videotaped the people and the signs to be sure that I would remember what hate and misunderstanding looks like.

I thought their protest was inappropriate and really immature in substance, but this is America. This freedom of speech thing isn't always fun or how we would want it. But that's as it should be. They had the same right to be there that I had. And they proved their total lack of class within the half hour by what they did to my daughter.

Part II coming...

Democratic Texas Women

Women
I think women in general have a larger burden to bear, what with having to share the world with the disgusting brutes with whom they have to co-mingle in order to actually bear children.

Texas Women
Women in Texas have a double burden. Many of them actually live under the same roofs as men who look at George W. Bush, and think "God, I wish someday I could be like him."

Texas Democratic Women
If that's not enough to make you lose your hamburger helper, let me see if I can give you yet more motivation. There are those in this world who are triple-burdened: They are women, they are married to Texas men, and despite their husband's best intentions, they are Democrats.

There are lots of people here who don't consider Bush a curiosity, but actually a role model! No, I'm not kidding. So a lot of Texas men try to act like they see George act. And who gets to see it play out in the kitchens and the living rooms and (Lord forbid) the bedrooms? Texas women. And if those Texas women have the misfortune to have half or more of a brain, they're Democrats. Thing is, in the gracious tradition of southern women, they have a high tolerance for suffering in silence. And indeed, many do precisely that.

And the moldy cherry on top of this un-palatable milkshake is the fact that Democrats are by far the minority in these parts, and Republicans don't hold back in their effort to make Democrats feel like it's they who are the odd ones. I could talk your ear off on that one, but not at this sitting.

Today I spent an hour and a half with about 35 Texas Democratic women. A rowdy, spirited bunch they were. I actually went there to speak in front of them. It was my first speech in...oh, let me see...this is August of '05...forever! I've never been invited anywhere to speak, but they foolishly asked me and my wife to come.

They welcomed us as we presented some great options on how to get the news that they may not be finding elsewhere. Alternative news. Democratic perspective. Liberal stuff. It was a lot of fun. Many of them were feisty old gals who probably were quite the handful in their prime, and in fact might well still be. There was even one who bore a decent resemblance to Hillary Clinton.

I think it's worth noting that if you think life is difficult, you should reflect on these gals whose very lives are an uphill battle: being women, being liberals, and living in the homeland of the great buffoon, Mr. Bush. But as you reflect on these truisms, don't forget: this bizarre stew of culture and bravado and way-too-much-heat has also produced some real female firebrands. Molly Ivins comes quickly to mind. So as you lament their unfortunate condition, it's proof that sometimes the best art comes from those most pained...

What's a Mother to Do?

By now you've probably heard of Cindy Sheehan. The Vacaville California mom lost her son Casey in the Iraq war. She's found her way to Crawford Texas and "demands" to speak with the President about the war in Iraq.

Demands is probably a mischaracterization here. She demands like the Democrats demand control of what legislation gets considered, or which Supreme Court nominees are offered up for consideration. She is, let's face it, sitting in 95-degree heat-then-rain-then-heat, avoiding the fire ants in a roadside ditch in a very inhospitable part of Texas. She's demanding this audience with the Prez like I'm demanding a quarter million dollar salary.

Her story touches me like many of the other things that get headlines don't. There is an immeasureable sadness when mothers allow their boys to go off to fight old men's wars, then are forced to watch those sons lowered into the ground. Those mothers will never hold their sons again, never see grandsons, never know the pleasure of seeing the wisdom that often comes with age spread across their maturing son's face.

Maybe because I would hate to see that depth of sadness in my mother's life, this particular pain is something to which I can relate. And maybe it's made more acute to me because I'll soon have a draft-age daughter, and I have no faith that this renegade president is beyond re-instating the draft to manifest his advisors' neo-con goals.

Whatever the case, Cindy Sheehan says now that she'll be jailed if she's still outside Bush's ranch on Thursday, and she'll be considered a national threat. Also on Thursday's ranching agenda: Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice are slated to arrive. It brings to mind another visit by Condoleeza Rice to Bush's ranch. It was August of 2001 where she brought a report entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike Within the US."

Strange to think that these clowns, the only administration to allow a tragically successful inside-the-US terrorist attack, think that a 48 year-old unarmed mother is a national threat to security.

I swear to God: if I wrote this in a screenplay they'd laugh me out of Hollywood. "Who would believe this kind of shit?" they would scream at me as they shoved me out the door in anger.

Who indeed?

Oh, About Those Bad Poll Numbers...

...looks like El Presidente has more bad news, more evidence that his floor show is beginning to get booed far more often than applauded.

From Newsweek:
A NEWSWEEK poll taken one month ago showed that 41 percent of Americans approved of Bush’s handling of Iraq; 54 percent did not.

In one week that 54% has slid to 61%. A 7% drop in a week? My God, but that's precipitous. I can almost hear momma Barbara saying "George...don't stand by the edge of that chasm! Y'might slip and fall in!"

And there's this little gem:
Bush’s approval ratings have dropped to 42 percent; 51 percent of Americans say they disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job as president. Bush’s approval ratings reached a high of 88 percent in his first term, in the month after the September 11 attacks. Forty-two percent is his low.

For the mathmatically challenged, his popularity has been more than cut in half. Even his never-deserved popularity for doing well with Homeland Security--his bulwark issue really--has taken a nasty hit. The only President to ever allow a massive scale, tremendously successful terrorist attack on US soil still has 51% of Americans fooled that he's doing a good job with that issue. But that's a 6% slide from March.

And here's a doozy: 64% of Americans think the war in Iraq has made us less, rather than more safe from terrorism.

These new stats make me feel smarter all the time, as they underscore what I was saying before we went to war--that an unnecessary war in Iraq would create more terrorists and terrorism instead of reduce both.

Thing is, I'd far rather feel safer than smarter. In all honesty though, it wasn't intelligence but common sense which told me that. If a country behaves the way we have--invade a non-threatening country on false pre-text, kill tens of thousands of people there, dismantle the various systems they've spent thousands of years developing and insist they do what we tell them to--then lots and lots of people will be outraged. We re-invigorated a cause that was running on fumes before the war.

Mr. President: I hope you extend your stay in Crawford. Maybe by the time your record-setting vacation ends they'll meet you at the DC limits with tar and feathers...

Bush Sliding--But Does He Give a Rat's Derriere?

Sometimes the polls surprise even a jaded Bush basher such as me. Yesterday's MSNBC's online poll about Bush's waging of the Iraq war:
15% thought he was doing a good job
2% weren't sure, and
83% thought he was doing a bad job

Wow! That's only a measure of the MSNBC online surfers who were willing to take the poll--hardly scientific, but a measure nonetheless.

A far more accurate poll shows that his numbers have never been worse. Bush's handling of Iraq is at 38%. With a sizeable percentage of Americans still support GW Bush, the Iraq question clearly threatens many Bush supporters' views of Bush. Because nearly 2 of every 3 Americans don't like how he's managing the war.

Bush is overwhelmed with concern for these awful new numbers. How's he showing concern? By taking a month-long vacation at his Crawford ranch. Bush doesn't so much think of what he has as a presidency anymore, but as a monarchy. Who cares what the people think? They don't know what's good for them!

Ah, but there's more...overall job approval hovers at 42%, which is quite low. Disapproval is quite high, at 55%. The honesty issue is also a clear divider in American opinion. 48% believe Bush is honest, and a whopping 52% believe he is not. More than half of Americans believe we have a dishonest president.

The last poll item, and perhaps the most damning, is 60% of respondents' belief that America's headed in the wrong direction.

This is the alarm bell ringing and ringing and ringing, and it's up to Democrats to respond: 6 of every 10 Americans say we're going the wrong direction. Democrats have another direction. Democrats need to voice what direction that is. Democrats need to offer their alternative so that we can give those 6 of 10 Americans a place to feel comfortable.

Bush has, in a sense, made it easy for us. He's such a phenomenally bad leader that finally, finally Americans are getting it. Democrats: you up to the task?

I Take NO Satisfaction In Being Right This Time

But as I predicted,Bush did it. John Bolton's been appointed Ambassador to the UN.

Bush did the ol' end-around, avoiding having to be further embarrassed by civil peoples' reaction to his freakish choice for Ambassador. What I don't understand is how he can be appointed to represent the US at the UN when it actuality, Bolton doesn't even believe that it exists. Think I've been smoking crack? Go here and watch him say so yourself.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose job it was to help Bolton pass un-caught through their net, thus sending his nomination to the senate for a confirmation vote, instead landed themselves a whale of a controversy. Republican George Voinovich of Ohio probably said it best when he called Bolton
"the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be."

Republican Senator Richard Lugar, a white-haired waterboy for the home team, said more than he intended to when he said about Bolton
"...there is no evidence that he has broken laws or engaged in serious ethical misconduct."
And to our knowledge he's molested no small boys, nor shot down any American Eagles...that's good enough for me!

So now it's done. GW Bush has continued in his mode of Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead! (or in this case, backward)

It's odd that 5 short (?) years after Bush first took office, the notion of being proud of what this country stands for and how it comports itself on the world stage seems...seems almost quaint and naive. I feel nostalgic for a time when the UN Ambassador wouldn't arrive at the UN greeted as he was today.

I apologize for the morose tone of this. Today at my chat room of choice for people in the Television field Bush supporters were doing their nanny-nanny-boo-boo routine, laughing at those of us who thought Bolton was a bad idea. And it occurred to me how far we'd slidden that mature journalistic adults were taking cheap pleasure in the appointment against the will of a thoughtful and discerning group of people, of a man widely known as a bully and a jerk. And far worse than that unsettling thought is what happens when I ponder what he'll be doing for the next 17 months.