American Distractions

Okay, so I admit I was a little more than pleased when the Republicans got a little payback for making such a big deal out of the Clinton/Lewinsky ordeal. I figure, if the Republicans made that thorny bed of virtue, then they ought to be able to sleep in it just fine. The whole frenzy struck me as kind of homo-phobic, but I couldn't help but feel a little flash of glee every time I saw big old Denny Hastert try to articulate his way through a press conference. Is it sad that the Republicans will become extinct because of a little sex scandal that involved no actual sex at all? Does it say something about our nation when we tolerate unnecessary war, and bribery of our elected officials, but we cannot tolerate a couple of pathetic older men making inappropriate passes at underage kids? We have accepted torture and illegal detention, we have allowed our soldiers to degrade prisoners, we have sent our air force to bomb civilian targets, but we can't get past some horney old guy making a pass at a younger person.

Granted, it's icky, when we have to deal with some old guy acting stupid with a younger woman or man. It's disgusting and immoral if that person is underage. But the kind of outrage we are seeing in the media was absent when we went to war with Iraq. What is so offensive about some nasty biz on the internet, when North Korea is testing a nuclear weapon, and our Navy is headed for the Gulf? The war is about to expand exponentially, and we are worried about some guy making passes at a kid, some kid he never even slept with.

I'm as guilty as the next person for feeling a jolt of joy as I watch the Republican party implode. But I worry that while Americans are distracted with a juicy bit of sleaze, our aircraft carriers sail ever closer to the Straight of Hormuz and the leaders of this country who are taking us out of the frying pan and into the fire, turning a war that we are already losing into one that we can never win.

I hope that the Republicans implode before the word to launch the next war is given.

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