I Second Congressman Murtha...

The mind reels. The head spins. Madness begins to set in. It’s all just too much, you know?

We are losing two wars, when prudent leadership would have waged one successfully. The Medicare Part D drug benefit has been a shambles and a fiasco from the get-go. Detainees who have been held without charge for over four years kill themselves and the U.S. commander of Guantanamo, Adm. Harry Harris, dismisses the act as not of desperation but "of asymmetrical warfare against us." The wrong people are being deported (see my post about the plight of Myrna Dick), the supreme court is eroding our rights by tossing the exclusion rule against illegally obtained evidence. (No longer to cops have to knock. I find this chilling. Someone comes through my front door like that, it will be met with force, and I’ll be dead.) The NSA is spying on Americans, tapping our phones and reading our emails. We are sliding to fascism so subtly that we might already be there. Black sites, extraordinary rendition, torture condoned…Give me a Valium, my heads about to explode!

Thank goodness the Republican Party is there to give me real issues to fret about! Those flag burners and monogamous homosexuals are the real threat to our freedom and democracy. And the estate tax, of course. Those are the real threats to America’s way of life!

I have made the joke for years that I learned everything I know about being in a successful relationship from my Uncle Billy and Aunt Richard. They have been together as long as I can remember. In my entire life I have never seen one of them raise their voice to the other or otherwise shown any disrespect to the other. (Remember that I’m a Navy brat – I wouldn’t call what my parents had a marriage – it was a partnership of mutual benefit, but they lived parallel lives. That’s the nature of the beast. Nine month tours are all too common, and Navy wives are independent creatures out of necessity. No offense, I respect and admire my Mom, I just wanted a real marriage. The Air Force afforded us that opportunity.)

As for flag burning? I am more offended by politicians wrapping themselves in the flag than the two cases of flag burning that have happened in the last decade. But to hear the Republican Party tell the tale, the National Guard Armory in Raytown is under siege on a daily basis by flag-burning skater punks from Westport who practice alternative lifestyles. (Although I see no evidence of this as I read the paper and devour the local news.)

I hear the Republicans talking about "we can’t cut and run" and if we protest, "we demoralize the troops." Bullshit. We love the troops, we adore them. We want them home from Iraq. We respect them for stepping up, but the time has come to admit that we were all misled by a pathological puppet-president, and get the fuck out.