We — the people of United States of America — are in big trouble.
Not from terrorists. Not from illegal immigration. Not from rising crime. Not even from the poverty / wealth gaps or the partisan divides.
To one degree or another, they’re all important issues that unfortunately require leadership — real leaders — but in this terribly torn and dangerous period, we are led instead by a bunch of kindergarten-level whiners.
For instance:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday accused Bill Clinton of making “flatly false” claims that the Bush administration didn’t lift a finger to stop terrorism before the 9/11 attacks.
“What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years,” Rice added.
Depending upon your seat and section on the sidelines, this translates to either, “we were just as good” or “we were just as bad”.
Of course, she was responding to Bill Clinton’s “I did not drop the ball on terrorism” of last week…. who was in turn responding to “The Path to 9/11″… all of which would be funny if taking place during Circle Time, but is abominable for a country of our stature.
Politics has turned into a winner take all finger-pointing game, and while I’m inclined to put a lot of this off on the coming election, it didn’t start last month. The levees had just been breached when people started saying it was “all Bush’s fault”… as ridiculous a charge as I’ve ever seen.
There was blame enough for everybody — then and now. Nothing happens in a vacuum; it takes the misadventures of many to set the stage for disasters such as those we’ve witnessed over the last six years. Every administration that has served during my lifetime has been profoundly affected by the actions and decisions made by those who came before them, and this ludicrous attempt to slice time into bite-sized pieces is beyond embarrassing.
Is there anybody with enough intestinal fortitude to step up and take some personal responsibility? I already know it won’t be Dick Cheney, who’s still spewing the same graham-crackers-and-milk mush about Saddam Hussein and Iraq… but surely there’s an adult someplace?
Anybody?
If this is the best we’ve got, we’re done. Stick a fork in us.