Shame

As Americans, we should be ashamed of ourselves right now.

We've got a buffoon for a president. Everyone knows it. We knew it before he was elected. He wasn't even really elected. And his buffoonery has lead us to experience horrific wars and horrific economic crises- pretty much as bad as any parody could have imagined eight years ago.

But I do believe his heart is essentially in the right place.

We've got a deeply cynical power grab behind our buffoon president, lead by Dick Cheney, who has exerted masterful manipulation of the government behind the scenes over the past eight years to exercise a profoundly conservative, pro-business, pro-secrecy agenda. He is truly a hero for those who believe in his extremist views, because he's managed to steer our president, and our nation, exactly where he wanted.

Cynical party politics has been pushed into hyperdrive, fueled by both parties but led by the shocking power of the political apparatus (Karl Rove, etc.) that plays a historically central and domineering role in this administration.

Our media has made a mockery of themselves, consolidating into little more than raw propaganda arms of our largest corporations, feeding on the inane cynicism of everything about the above that does not matter, and none of it which does.

We are now in the midst of a financial meltdown of historic proportions, yet we cannot rise above all of this when it counts the most. Nancy Pelosi's jaw-droppingly boneheaded partisan diatribe minutes before today's House vote on the bailout bill is case in point.

To sum it up, the emperor now has no clothes. We have been exposed as a nation of profound over-spenders who have suddenly had to confront our record-breaking debts, and we're falling all over each other pointing fingers at the moment of our reckoning.

This is how I feel today, as the DOW sinks (as of now) over 700 points. And the only thing getting louder is the bullshit.

This is not George W. Bush's fault, nor is it Cheney's, or the Republicans', or the Democrats', or Wall Street's, or Main Street's.

We got here together.

We should ALL be ashamed.