Three reasons I'm getting profoundly disenchanted by politics.

Reason 1) Which is more un-American: to criticize the war effort where it is not succeeding, or call for a terrorist attack in an American city? To wit, check out the Media Matters and Think Progress coverage of Bill O'Reilly of late. Of interest are his call to allow al-Qaeda to blow up the Coit Tower in San Francisco, his statement the next day defending the comments, and his statement yesterday saying that it was all "satire". (He also tried rewriting history on his TV show by omitting the most offensive remarks addressing the controversy then acting indignant because he hadn't said anything offensive or potentially treacherous.)

I'm just really fed up with conservative pundits continuing to assert that efforts to criticize the war effort are, in and of themselves, un-American, when some of them are actually advocating the murder of American citizens.

Reason 2) The lunacy is no longer relegated to the Lunatic Fringe. Capitol Hill Blue had a report a few days about a strategy memo circulated among "senior Republican leaders" that discussed how to rally public support for the war effort. Most of the ideas appear to be mostly harmless, legitimate efforts to try and make their case, but in one particularly egregious instance their strategizing moves into a very nefarious area. One way, the memo states, that American support would return to the President would be via another terrorist attack on the US.

Just so we're clear about this: the leadership of the ruling party of the country says that another terrorist attack and the time of "national shock and sorrow" would validate the war effort. I really hope, and generally suspect, that these leaders don't want another terrorist attack in the States. But for them to even think this way - of turning a 9/11-style tragedy toward some perverse political gain - is the height of repugnant behavior. It also confirms - as if it needed any more confirmation - that the ruling members of the ruling party have been completely taken over by a conservative (or, perhaps, neo-conservative) movement that used to sit on the sidelines of the national debate screaming about not letting black children attend school with white kids and blowing up doctors and patients.

Reason 3) Our President's steadfast refusal to acknowledge reality. There was a news story over the weekend, the style of which generally makes my eyes glaze over. But this one was important to our understanding of this administration. The Vice President met with Ahmed Chalabi. Aside from the fact that the two are probably the most detestable figures in the Iraq war, and between them they likely have enough potential criminal convictions to give them jail sentences that could match that of a serial marijuana user, the tone of meeting is what is particularly galling.

Chalabi, you may recall, was the guy on whose "intelligence" a lot of White House policy was based with regard to WMD. When we started finding scads and scads of not-weapons (i.e., sand) in Iraq, Chalabi got tossed aside as the fraud and opportunist he was. That was the smart, correct thing to do: disassociate yourself from fraudulent people who tell you lies.

So, of course, he's back, and having meetings with Cheney at the White House. (I don't know if that is more wrong, or more dumb. It's a shitload of both.) And why, pray tell, was Chalabi at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW? According to Byron York, it was to discuss Iraq's WMDs. You know, all those WMDs that were used as evidence to get us into the Iraq War in the first place. All those WMDs that weren't used on American troops. All those WMDs we have not found. All those WMDs that the addendum to the Duelfer report say never existed. All those WMDs that, according to York (writer for the conservative mag National Review, a friendly voice in the wilderness for the Bush White House), folks in the White House still believe we will find.

But only some folks. Not Stephen Hadley, who is the President's National Security Adviser. He was on Late Edition this past Sunday. And you know what he said?:

HADLEY: ... Turns out we were wrong.

About WMDs! That's what he's talking about! That's what the veep, at the very least, was talking to Chalabi that very day about finding in Iraq. (The entire text of Hadley's remarks are at the link. This shocking admission comes in the second paragraph of Hadley's first answer. You know, get the bad shit out of the way first. Like a band-aid... one-rip, RIGHT OFF!)

Either Hadley didn't get the talking points for the day about the meeting, hasn't been told that the WMDs actually are there actively hiding from us, or - most likely - this administration cannot get its act together enough to stop contradicting themselves on a daily basis.

Not only does the Bush team steadfastly refuse to acknowledge reality, they cannot agree on which un-reality they believe in.

---

Now, all of that said, I'm very tired about it all. It's taken me over two weeks to synthesize any of this, and I keep coming back to the same shit all over again every time. I have other shit going on in my life. Most of it's good, but I haven't been writing about it because I sit here with 14 tabs open in Mozilla with pages of stuff from all over the place (an exercise I conduct with unbearable frequency) that continually tell me the same thing. So I'm done with writing about politics for a while. If you're reading this for politics, go elsewhere. There are a billion and a half other places more insightful than I am. I'm just done.