If At First You Don't Succeed…

…Change the expectations!

This morning, as I was watching the news, I heard an interesting story about the war in Iraq. Apparently, it is now the opinion of just over fifty percent of those polled that we can "win the war against terror" (whatever that means) without "winning the war" in Iraq. Furthermore, just over half of the respondents believe that we should withdraw from Iraq.

Excuse me for remembering, but would that be the same just over fifty percent of us who never thought we should have allowed the president and his cronies to unilaterally declare war on Iraq in the first place? I know that the VP cares not one whit what anyone else thinks, but this war has never had popular support. It has always been seen as a bad move by about half the country.

How the clowns in power stayed in power is a mystery. (To some, if not to me…) They've so horribly mismanaging the economy, lied to the American public repeatedly about why they wanted to unilaterally attack Iraq, cavalierly broke the law by spying on the American public, and glibly asserted that huge swathes of the constitution do not apply to them. Either the American public is not paying attention, or they somehow stole the election. (Probably both!)

They're great at misdirection. When they think actual issues may confuse the voters (by which, I mean: Get them to come to their senses and vote for someone else…), they start playing the shell game. "Terrorists are attacking!" they cry until the frenzied public is seeing boogie men under every rock. That or they pander to some special interest block to get them to mobilize. "The Liberals want to make the practice of your religion illegal," they say and their sheep baa it from every pew.

They've used fear and confusion to hold onto power as long as they can and been smug and glib about how they don't really care what the public thinks. By confusing the issue, spewing vitriol at anyone who disagrees with them, and constantly trying to convince us that the next terrorist attach is one vote away, they've hogtied a gullible plurality who then were hit by the fallout of the economy that they allowed to implode.

Perhaps the next administration will be better at listening to the facts, the American public, and the constitution. I doubt it, but one can always dream.

Wherever you are this morning, I hope you'll hold fast to your dream.

Don Bergquist – April 18, 2008 – Lakewood, Colorado, USA