Liberals got revenge for Cheney's revenge, and all I got was this lousy political era

The Scooter Libby trial has me completely fed up with Washington.

Why anyone would think that a city and a political era so completely wallowing in its own bitterness and cynicism and vengefulness and meanspiritedness should be an example to anyone, nevertheless the world, is completely beyond me.

And its not just the blowhards in office. It's the press. It's the activists. It's everyone in Washington so fuckin' cocksure of themselves and their self-righteous grandstanding. It's all kinds of people whose real feelings about the world and others don't at all warrant that their examples be followed but who demand and coerce it anyway, deserving or not.

I am completely fed up. I have no heroes in Washington or among any of the important political players, right now. It's one long swaggering, tough-minded groupthink wandering between ideological causes. This is not King or Ghandi. This is politics masqerading as something better.

This is the crowd of folks who propped up slavery, insistent that fugitive slave laws were the law of the land, and the underground railroad was full of cowardly scofflaws ignoring the highest court's Dred Scott ruling.

This the crowd of folks who made the Nazis' extermination of the Jews possible by complying with the laws, because it was the law, after all, to turn in Jews to be sent to the ghettos and murdered.

And this is a political era of cowardice and vengefulness and bitterness and cynicism masquerading as something better than they are.

There are many things I can't stomach in the world. But pretending like you and your motives are better than they really are because you're too cowardly to face yourself for real is not courage, and it certainly isn't an example to emulate.

The Scooter Libby trial is about revenge for revenge. And it leaves me with the feeling that either progress entails an uglier, more bitter, more mean-spirited future.

Or, more likely. That this isn't progress at all. This is something uglier. This is politics.

"What have you accomplished?" Americans should be asking Washington, right now.

The answer: a solemn "Nothing."

Love,
Ben

A rare moment of wholehearted agreement with the National Review

Pardon Libby

The bloodlust in Washington has gone on long enough. It's time to end it.

And if we can't, we deserve the government we get.

This is a Washington I want nothing to do with. It completely spoils my image of Washington as a place of idealism and inspiration of my younger days spent there.

At the end of the day, doesn't Washington have to look at itself, at some point, and asked, "What have we accomplished?"

As with the beginning of the Iraq war, denial is worst when it involves groupthink. When everyone pretends that everything is going well or ok. But what is going well or ok in Washington, these days? A Democratic majority? Is that what consistutes a healthy political system?

What has all this bloodlust accomplished?

Nothing. Tragically.

Love,
Ben