Great Charters

A diplomat says the pooch has been screwed (in Arabic no less!) and then walks it back as a translation error. A general says that when he called for more soldiers to pacify restive Baghdad, he was speaking in some sort of post-Latinate subjunctive conditional mood which indicates any subsequent declarative to mean precisely the opposite of what it means, until such time as precisely the opposite meaning is spoken directly, at which point the rules revert, the double-down is off the table, the scratched 8-ball zips back out of the pocket and onto the felt, the homerun unhits itself, the dead awake, the rain rises, the sun runs easterly, and the war, by god, wars onward, or wears onward, as the case may be.

The men and women of The Media are marginally less blinkered these days, and at least put "clarification" in doubting quotation marks when an opposite-day email arrives to disclaim the plain speech of the day before, and Democrats, at least so long as they remain in the nominal opposition, cry "Lawd God" like a racist archetype in a Penn Warren novel every time one of these laughable walk-backs occur, but it remains questionable, by which I mean false, to assume that such contradictions percolate into the general consciousness or conscience of the American people. When the gods of nations dispensed intelligence, they gave the United States a fixed share, so that when our nation was young and our population small we packed more men of genius than any state in historical memory, but as we grew, so diminished our smarts, until today, just past 300 million poor souls, the average share price, so to speak, is in penny-stock territory, which explains the persistent popularity, relatively speaking, of such American institutions as the Democrats, the Republicans, Dancing with the Stars, the Olde Country Buffet, Tom Friedman, and the waterbed.

Which is to say that while the factional fortunes of America's political parties slosh from one side to the other like the contents of a waterbed on prom night, it is not the skill and acuity of the slobs ostensibly on top that directs the modest tide, but rather dead weight and flailing. I've seen too much triumphalism lately. I've seen too much grinning at better Democratic fortunes, too many suggestions that people are "waking up" to the GOP's corruption, the war's mire, the economy's false and unmade promises. I've seen too many otherwise decently skeptical people snatch the passing wreckage of hope and cling to it against drowning, as if Nan Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the Democratic Tabernacle Choir will come to power representing a shift in American opinion instead of what they actually do and will represent: the drift of America's insufficient attention.

In my recent perusal of Die TäglichKos, I came across some speculatin' on the Donkle's plans for the Congress, should he take it. First: "Break the link between lobbyists and legislation," as if there is a mystical bond which, once severed, will forever free the clones from their psychic puppetmasters. Second: Raise the minimum wage. Third: Negotiate drug prices.

Until someone says: Take out the Ouija and raise the wailing spirits of Runnymede, then, ladies and gentlemen, I suggest that the battle hasn't even been joined.