Bottom Feeding

Parse the evening news commentary. Like CNN. The airwaves are hot with the Joe Wilson story. He's "an American hero to many." It will probably "do him good" in his Republican district. "It's going over well in the heartland." Joe raised $200K!

Yeah?

Well, Joe's opponent, the former Marine, the Democrat who's running against him, raised over $1M in the same 48 hours. But that's not something you need to know.

And let me tell you something. "Real" Americans just won the White House and both houses of Congress, so you can stop equating "real" Americans with "conservatives" and "heartland" with "real" America any second now. That would be truth in advertising, you brain-dead, programmed news droids.

And on the subject of programmed brain-washed news droids, how about making clear that Joe is flat-out wrong. Just establish that FACT, could you? The bill expressly excludes immigrants who are here illegally. There's no "yeah but" about it. End of story.

Here's what: Joe just lowered the bar for acceptable political discourse, at a time when it's already in the gutter on the Right and manufactured deliberately to take us inexorably to a place where the time for talking is over and only weapons will speak. I worry for my country. But don't let that stop you from making him into a "hero."

"Hero"? Is it the standard now that you're an American hero if you're uninformed, dead wrong, crudely inarticulate, militantly insult a sitting President, dumb as a slab of mutton, and can't tell the difference between a Joint Session of Congress and a bunch of drunken Bubbas at a hog callin'?

Hey, if he's a hero, let's just get this done right now and get it over with! Let's ditch the Bald Eagle and make the polecat our national icon while we're at it. Ann Coulter can be the new Secretary of Ethics and Integrity, and Michelle Bachman can be our new Madonna.

When formerly American heroes were men like Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., now American heroes are men like Joe Wilson? I denounce and deny that. Words have meaning. Heros have earned our highest regard, generally by putting their lives on the line for others. Joe Wilson just brayed like a jackass. He's American white trash, maybe, but he's no "hero."

I would love it if, just once, moderate, thinking Republicans--all ten of you--stood like grown-ups and called the line on the thugs that have stolen your party, the media, and the national discourse and replaced them, respectively, with the SS, the National Enquirer, and a spitball fight.

I mean, my inlaws--who would JUST DIE if they knew I called them that--are educated people. Nevertheless, they watch Fox. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. Can someone please explain to me how educated people can watch FOX and believe it? How is it possible that they consider themselves decent, conservative, and well bred, AND Republicans, when Republicanism has become synonymous with Fox News? With Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Sarah Palin, Joe Wilson, and Joe the Plumber? Why aren't they ashamed? I mean, you just cannot be respectable AND Republican. You can't be educated AND a creationist, capable of independent research AND believe Fox, a proponent of family values AND a fan of Michelle Bachman, or respectable AND a Republican.

America really is in a race to the bottom, and Republicans are winning it.