Politics unusual

I find the stuff going on in Washington (and Juneau) to be scary. Maybe I scare easily, but I'm old enough to remember scary times and not want to see the signs in my own country. There is all this talk of a cabal (Cheny and Rumsfeld) manipulating the administration and the president. We seem to have secret police who kidnap folks and spirit them away to places where they can be tortured in secret prisons. The senate wants to establish rules for interrogation which exclude torture, but Cheny speaks for an exemption for the CIA. Cheney's lieutenant is indicted on multiple counts of illicit activity. We are in a war of questionable virtue and which may well be unwinable. A former presidential candidate is demanding we bring home 20,000 troops by Christmas, regardless of the military merit in the non-plan.

Bush says he is in charge and on top of everything, but I'm not alone in doubting that he is really in control. The premise that he is the not very bright figurehead fronting for some shadowy group is no longer far fetched.

Now we uncover signs that our government has been misleading us into war at least as far back as Viet Nam. Confidence in the president is down below 40% and still dropping. He is met by riots and challenges in South America. His second supreme court nominee was a bad joke and the new one seems to want to make law from the bench. Defenders of Bush simply say everything is fine and bluff their way onward.

I don't think everything is fine and my confidence in our government is at an all time low. Has anyone else noticed?

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