43 is the loneliest number

I started this blog as a way to vent about politics when the Democratic primary was capturing most of my attention, and I'm actually surprised I haven't written more lately on that topic. I was planning a kind of farewell to Bush post, but figured I'm not going to say anything that hasn't already been said.

I'm glad he's going back to Texas and I'll at least say this: since Bush insists upon the necessity of justifying each and every one of his actions based upon what happened on September 11th, 2001, I will use that reference point, too.

The terrorists who attacked us that day could not have had a better president for furthering their goals. Jihadists know that they're never going to defeat us militarily. They absolutely know that. What they wanted to do was attack our ideas, our self-confidence as a people and a civilization. The symbolic weight of 9/11 matches, and perhaps surpasses (at least from a historical perspective) the heartbreaking legacy and memory that the dead leave behind. This tactic was not fated to work, however; it worked because we allowed it to work.

Bush and his cronies scared us, lied to us, forced us to hunker down, and made the Constitution into a negotiable document, all in the name of protecting us from terrorists. Illegal wiretaps, the promotion of torture, unchecked executive power--these are all developments that Bush thrust in our faces as if we were some third world country who was beholden to a tyrant. We, as a citizenry, are certainly responsible for letting him do this, as are the myriad Democrats who fell in lock-step with Bush in each and every case of "national security" (they, too, wanted to cover their ass).

But what is supposed to set America apart is the dream of America. I am a realist about what we are as a country, despite the tendency of our collective patriotism to obscure some of our less respectable actions and traits. But what separates America is that our ideals, our vision of ourselves which always forces us to look in the mirror, which is embodied in and by our founding documents, should not be sacrificed for anything--not even our own safety. "Give me liberty, or give me death" should be taken seriously. Because without those ideals we are another Rome waiting to fall. When we sacrifice our ideals (even as we sometimes fail to live up to them), we sacrifice our collective identity.

Bush, I'm sure, did what he thought was right. But surely he was also covering his ass as he led the fight on implementing his Orwellian policies. No president wants to be responsible for the deaths of his/her citizens. And so maybe we'll just wiretap, but just a little bit; or, we'll only torture the really bad guys. When exceptions are made, the rule falls apart. And many things have fallen apart in the last eight years.

I could go on but I'm in a celebratory mood today, and ready to move on.

2 million in Washington! Wow!