Angry At Politics

I had Crossballs on in the background just recently. For the uninitiated, Crossballs is a mock-talking-heads program, where real experts are duped into debating comics posing as experts. Anyway, the issue up for debate was the legalization of marijuana. The comedian, on the pro side of the debate, made the point that American role models such as Willie Nelson smoked pot. He then challenged the conservative female on the opposite side of the issue to name any American role model who did not smoke pot. Predictably, she produced the sparkling example of President Bush, and the comedian called her on it, asserting that President Bush snorted cocaine. When he demanded that she address the issue, she said "I won't respond to that, because you're high." Admittedly, the erratic behavior and wild claims of the comedian in the debate leading up to this point made that observation not wholly unfair. But does it really matter?

I saw this brief exchange as symbolic of this entire administration. The problem with the administration is that it only passes superficial inspection. That was true during the election, when Bush's foreign policy inexperience was shrugged, as were his business failures and his relatively diluted role as Governor of Texas, a state with a part-time legislature that still found the time to execute the retarded. And it remained true after 9/11, when the rest of us understood that the world had changed, but the Bush administration remained fixated on Iraq. Yet we were willing to believe that the President was resolute. Of course, now the gig is up. With an egg on their faces, the administration must suck it up and deliver straight-faced lies to the American people, and Republican partisans are forced to respond that they don't even have to respond - that either the questioner or the act of questioning is invalid. Dealing with question? That's just out of the question.