It is hard to believe that six years have passed since W. was inaugurated and our country began its descent into Hell. I'll grant you, it was titillating during the Clinton years to wade past Limbo and dabble our toes in the Second Circle (lust). But W. and his entourage have created an express lane to the Eighth Circle and beyond, stacking up a lifetime of sins in only half a dozen years, or roughly the length of a Mel Gibson movie.
But six years is a long time in both the practical and the institutional memory of a country, and it is difficult to think back to the time when there used to be more than one issue on the table; a time when policy and substance were roots for debate, and not partisanship and slander. I'd venture to say even some moderate Republicans yearn for the days when we could actually get things done.
The Hundred Hours notwithstanding, it has been little ado about nothing since 2001, and I think it is easy to see that most of America has been lulled into a sense of comfort with an impotent government - or at least an impotent legislature. We go to bed at night wrapped in a blanket made of faux security, believing that as long as the government talks the hard line, we will be "safe," and all the other issues will take care of themselves. And while the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but so does a journey of a thousand errors. When a critical mass has failed to stand up and stop the incremental annexation of our rights, we all look up six years later in shock at how many steps into the journey we now are.
With the exception of the War on Terror (tm), little progress has been made on any other front, leaving critical domestic and foreign issues to wither on the vine. And W. has been satisfied to keep it that way. Sex sells, and fear wins. Does the average American (read: non-Kossacks) have any idea of the administration's policy on welfare? Health care reform? Job creation? Trade relations? Diplomacy with non-Middle Eastern nations? Tax code upgrades? Higher education? Labor-management relations? Corporate governance and taxation? Decaying infrastructure - roads and bridges? (Feel free to add your own to the list.)
I miss those days, and I bet most Americans do, too. The problem is in the meaning of the word "miss". I actually remember the days when issues were important, and when we weren't single-minded and double-barreled in pursuit of one issue to the neglect, even exclusion, of all others. Most Americans miss those days in that they cannot recall them so long ago, so they forget there was once a time when great leaders had great debates about great issues; when neither candidate was a bed of roses, nor were they piles of slop; when whether D or R won the election, our country would probably still be in pretty good hands. And those days aren't as long ago as they may seem.
W. made us accustomed to getting less when we thought we were getting so much more, the best of both worlds. He would steer us right on the main issue - national security - and we were free to give up worrying about the other issues, confident that his paternal instinct and constitutional values would lead us to the promised land. Too many abdicated their roles as citizens when it became too hard to fight back. And maybe we walked right into a trap.
Maybe we do not give Those Who Shall Wish Us Harm - the terrorists - nearly enough credit. Our government's imagination was not broad enough to visualize planes crashing into buildings. What if the next terror step is hiding in plain sight? What if the approach is to take advantage of a belligerent yet bereft president and his misplaced values to undermine the entire nation at once? Is it so hard to imagine? Terrorists focus our attention and our money on Iraq and global security; they use the passions of the sitting president to exacerbate the situation to the neglect of all other issues; and our nation slowly dies from internal bleeding.
What has sparked this stroll down Amnesia Lane is the rapid-fire announcements of four candidates for president in the last week - Sens. Obama, Clinton and Brownback, and Gov. Richardson. While each announcement contained boilerplate drivel, each also focused on specific issues, and issues other than Iraq or national security. Without a clear heir to all of W.'s policies, foibles, and fraud, there is a genuine chance for real issues to hit the airwaves again. With the class of much of the Democratic field, there is a prospect of lots of meat and little mud. The orphan issues that have been ignored can receive the love and attention (and money) they so desperately need.
And so in spite of the extreme imbalance of power generated by the administration, for the next two years we are stuck with W. and his Diet Coke Presidency. He pledged to take out all the bad, unhealthy, and inconvenient things, and replace them with just one sweetener that will actually be better for us. In the end, we miss the other ingredients that weren't so bad for us in moderation, we are not that much healthier, and we have this bad taste in our mouths.
