What if Positions Were Reversed?

What if it was the democrats who had nominated an impulsive, angry, ill man for President? If they had picked a "confused beauty queen" (Chavez's words, not mine) for VP, who consistently showed herself as a putz? What if democrats mocked the republican nominee for visiting his ailing grandmother?
Think about it.

Autumn

It's coming here, slowly but surely. Despite the 80-degree days, it's coming along. Leaves are changing and drifting to the ground in golden piles with fire colored leaves--orange and smoked ruby--peeking out in the gold mass. Those still clinging to the trees are paling and the fruits are ripening and becoming heavy. Days are shorter and mornings are cooler and wetter, and best of all, the mountains are visible in their enormous majesty. It's times like this that I actually remember I live in a valley.
I take comfort in the eternal (as much as anything is eternal) march of seasons. The rhythm is warm and gentle and I love that after the long blaze of summer days.
I end up having sort of philosophical bent in the fall and all I want to do is pull out my sweaters, drink hot tea, and sit in the sunshine, preferably outside, while the breezes drift in from the country side, bringing the smell of bonfire smoke and crisp mountain air.
But I'm not going to lie, going swimming in October is something of a pleasant novelty.

No No No NO

Washington Wire - WSJ.com : Political Perceptions: Sarah Palin for 2012? Sure, why not.
I swear, if she becomes a legit candidate in 2012, I'm going to kill myself.

Sarah Palin Supports the Aerial Hunting of Wolves
And a hundred other reasons.

She makes me sick.

Decline of American Power

SPIEGEL ONLINE - Druckversion - The End of Arrogance: America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
Oh dear. We are in trouble.

Bush is a broken record stuck on the word 'terror' and that's not the main concern anymore. Or at the moment, anyway. The UN wanted to hear about what we're going to do about Wall Street and all Bush42 could talk about was terrorism.
An important issue, surely, but that won't mean a damn thing if the financial world comes down around our ears.

Our allies in the UN have nothing but contempt for the poor man* and we need them. We need them to help us out, just as they need us--we're the biggest economy on the planet but they're all tied into us. We need them if we're going to face the future on stable feet.

I honestly don't know if we'll ever recover our status as an economic super power. Only time will tell, but if we don't, who's the next in line? India? China? A European nation? That's a power vacuum that will have to be filled.

Somebody called this a post-America age. I'm think that's right, which scares me as part of the next generation of people to inherit the country. I'll be footing the bill for the Me Generation's folly. I've been mortgaged and my grandchildren might pay that off. I don't know if I ever can.

On the other hand, as the author pointed out, America was unjustifiably proud. Sure, we had some bragging rights, but this country went too far. We couldn't admit when we were wrong, couldn't adjust. The US displayed an awful lot of tunnel vision.

Bottom line is this:
Bush, by being out of his depth, fucked up.
Wall Street and the government fucked up.
The next president is fucked.
The next generation is fucked.
We're all fucked for the time being.

*At this point, I pity him. I really do. His puppeteers have found themselves a prospective replacement and his strings are all worn out anyway. He's faded. A faded man used as an illusion by people far smarter than he is. A man out of his depth for eight years who never seemed to even touch bottom. This crisis, the Iraq war, and torture are going to be the biggest smears on his already checkered legacy. He will go down in history as probably the worst president in American history.
He probably could have scrapped by as a care-taker president, handing off a mostly intact America to the next guy, but that's long gone. That died on September 10th. He could have given a cryogenically frozen US to the next guy if he had stuck with Afghanistan, but he allowed that to be melted with a blow torch when Cheney and his other handlers threw the Iraq war at him.

Perhaps a Silly Thought...

It seems to me that there's a flaw in the Republican view of, well, the world, I suppose.
With the lurverly collapse of the market recently, they blame the Democrats for forcing the government to offer loans to those who couldn't afford it. Allowing them to be irresponsible and that we--read all those with money enough not to worry about loosing the house--are to catch them. Part of being a true adult is having the opportunity to fail and be irresponsible, though I'd prefer that you didn't do it at my expense.

All right, it sucks that taxes are going to bail those Wall Street bastards out, but part of the deal is that the lenders CHOOSE to be irresponsible "(though, to be far, more than half the shit we're in was created by Wall Street). I'd like to let the chips fall where they may, but I dunno if we can do that.