Four

Four years ago, George Bush's army invaded the sovereign state of Iraq, supposedly in search of what were actually non-existent "weapons of mass destruction." Four years later, the country of Iraq is in much worse shape than it was before, the country is embroiled in the midst of a bloody civil war, and America has become hated the world over.

Four years ago,

• Iraqis had a fully functioning electric grid, with 24/7 power
• Iraqis lived in one of the most modern societies in the Middle East
• Iraqi women saw a level of independence and acceptance similar to that in Western societies
• Iraqis felt safe to walk their streets at night
• There was no sectarian violence in Iraq
• Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were still alive
• 3208 Americans were still alive
• 32,000 Americans were unwounded

Today, four years after the invasion, here's how the world looks:

• Iraqis have only spotty electricity, with other utilities similarly demolished and barely functioning; living conditions are much worse than under the previous regime
• Iraqi society has devolved significantly; the upper class has fled, the middle class faces massive unemployment, and modernity has been replaced with near-feudal living conditions
• Iraqi women have been forced to adhere to hard line religious rule and restrictions; freedom and independence are a thing of the past
• Iraqis not only can't walk the streets at night, they can't walk the streets in the daytime without fear of being bombed, shot at, or kidnapped
• The country is in the midst of a violent sectarian civil war
• Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed, either by U.S. troops or by sectarian violence
• 3208 American troops have been killed in combat
• More than 32,000 Americans have suffered combat-related injuries, many of them horrific and unrecoverable.

In other words, and no one in power wants to admit this, things were much better under Saddam Hussein -- for both Iraqis and Americans. Since Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction (or even of everyday type destruction), he posed no threat to the United States. The Iraqi populace, while somewhat repressed, were at least alive. They had electricity and running water and no one was shooting at them every time they opened their front doors. Life under Hussein wasn't perfect, but it wasn't deadly.

Today, life in Iraq is deadly -- for Iraqis and Americans alike. The Iraq invasion has proven to be perhaps the biggest foreign policy blunder in American history. And yet the Bush administration shows no sign of ending our long international embarrassment. The incursion that was supposed to last weeks, not months, has instead lasted four years, with no end in sight.

Still, the president pleads for our patience in seeing it through to whatever end might await. "Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult but it can be won," Bush said. "It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through."

He is wrong. He has consistently been wrong. The "fight" cannot be won. Courage and resolve have nothing to do with it. At this point, Bush's "resolve" is nothing more than suicidal stubbornness. Facts are facts; Bush and his cronies have made Iraq a much worse place than it was before we invaded. Iraq is in the midst of a bloody civil war, and it's America's fault.

We must own up to our mistakes and get the hell out of Iraq as fast as we can. The right-wing war hawks think it is a sign of weakness to admit and correct our mistakes. Instead, they'll stick to their wrong-headed ideas until there are no soldiers left to fight. I don't know what sort of psychological problems these people have, but our soldiers and the Iraqi populace are dying for the hawks' misplaced bravado. Fighting till the bitter end is seldom the best approach to any conflict, especially if you're fighting a losing battle.

Some war proponents argue that we have to stay in Iraq because the situation will get even worse if we leave. Maybe that's the case, but things are also getting worse the longer we stay. Four years is enough; each additional day only makes things worse.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Dynasty

If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, I'll probably vote for her in the general election. But I hope she doesn't win; I don't want her to be president. Not that she wouldn't make a good president. Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn't. All I know is that a second President Clinton would be a very bad thing for our country.

If Senator Clinton becomes President Clinton, that will mean that two families will have ruled the United States for a quarter of a century. Our country has been run by someone named Bush or Clinton since 1988; that's the kind of sequential family dynasty that our forefathers rebelled against in 1776.

It doesn't matter whether this Bush or that Clinton was a good or a bad ruler; the idea of a ruling family (or two) is antithetical to a healthy democracy. America was not created as a monarchy. We are supposed to be a country of the people, for the people, not a kingdom ruled by the privileged few.

Think if the trends continue. Senator Clinton wins in 2008, and maybe gets re-elected in 2012. By that time, the Bush stench has subsided and brother Jeb wins the Republican nomination and the general election in 2016. If he gets re-elected in 2020, we're now looking at a dual-family dynasty from 1988 through 2024 -- 36 years of Bush and Clinton. That would have been unthinkable to our founding fathers, and should be unacceptable to us today.

Again, I'm not judging Senator Clinton's fitness for the job. Personally, I think she's both a shrill and canny political manipulator, skilled and intelligent yet two-faced and purely interested in her own political ambition. In that regard, she's not unlike the two-faced Republicans currently in the race, such as Giuliani and McCain, both of whom are selling their souls for the blessing of the religious right. All things said and done, I'll take a two-faced quasi-liberal over a two-faced quasi-conservative any day.

That said, I'd rather have a better choice, as would most Americans. That's where someone like Barack Obama or John Edwards has appeal; Obama for his freshness and lack of old-school political ties, and Edwards for his populist stance and positive message. I think either of these gentleman would make a fine candidate and a fine leader. We need new faces and new ideas, not the tired old political platitudes and certainly not another member of our two-family royal dynasty.

So that's why I'm anti-Clinton, and think she should be taken out of the race before the primaries are over. She should sacrifice her own ambition for the good of the country; the Bush-Clinton dynasty should end with King George II.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Tabloids

There are a lot of important things happening in our world today. One congressional oversight committee is investigating billions of dollars of fraud and waste in Iraq, another is investigating the fabricated intelligence that was used to sell the war, the vice president's top aide is on trial for lying to a grand jury about that same pre-war intelligence, congress is debating just what it can do to stop the president from sending more troops to Iraq, and the president himself is apparently making plans to invade Iraq's next-door neighbor, Iran. Yet with all this important news to report, what is our mainstream media reporting?

Anna Nicole Smith. And a deranged astronaut with romantic problems.

Our mainstream media has devolved into tabloid journalism. Television and newspaper reporters pander to the lowest common denominator; coverage is dictated by ratings, circulation, and web page hits. The result is perhaps the lowest point for our media since the yellow journalism of a century ago. The situation is deplorable.

Obviously, a great number of people are interested in Anna Nicole Smith. They're also interested in Tom Cruise's baby, Jennifer Anniston's body parts, and Bigfoot. That doesn't mean, however, that our respected news media needs to devote all their coverage to these vicarious subjects. That's what we have tabloids for. Let the National Enquirer and the Weekly World News report on dead ex-strippers and diaper-wearing homicidal space travelers; CBS News and the New York Times should eschew such frivolous topics and instead report on the life-and-death news that really matters.

Unfortunately, when newsrooms are ruled by accountants, only the bottom line matters. So our media gives the public what they want, not necessarily what they need. Yeah, the Scooter Libby trial is complex. Yeah, the news from Iraq is depressing. Yeah, no one really wants to hear about yet another pending war in the Middle East. But we need to hear about these things, or else our democracy becomes a sham; a well-informed public is essential to a functioning democracy, after all. And the public is not well-informed when it knows more about Anna Nicole Smith's sex partners than it does about who's running what in Washington.

The death of relevant media can be directly or indirectly blamed on the rise of the for-profit 24-hour cable news networks. One such network was fine; CNN in the old days served a very useful purpose. But today's three-or-more-way competition results in too much airtime to fill and excessive pandering to the know-nothing masses. Call me elitist, call me an intellectual (oh that word!), but I want to be informed -- and I need my neighbors to be informed, as well, whether they want to or not.

Real news isn't always pretty, and becoming informed takes effort. Our news media needs to facilitate that effort, not pander to the low-brow tastes of an apparently congenitally disinterested public. The media must help us rise above our intellectual sloth, not push us further into the muck. Give Anna Nicole Smith a short bio in the entertainment section, but leave page one (and the hour-long cable analysis) for news that really matters.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Resolution

President Bush is about to escalate the war in Iraq, in defiance of the overwhelming majority of the American public, our elected officials, his military leaders, and the country's best advisers. It is a suicidal action that has resulted in poll ratings similar to those of President Nixon in the throes of the Watergate affair. Yet still he proceeds.

How can we stop this madman? Our Congress, emboldened by the anti-war mandate of the 2006 elections, has taken the dramatic step of -- wait for it -- introducing a non-binding resolution opposing the troop surge.

They could have voted to impeach the president, but they didn't. They could have voted to withhold funds for the extra troops, but they didn't. They could have voted to cut all military funding related to Iraq, but they didn't. They could have voted to repeal their previous support of the war, but they didn't. Instead, they voted for a non-binding resolution. Non-binding. Totally toothless.

Our representatives are weak, spineless, worthless wussies. They have a mandate from the public, and they back down. They could help to stop this war, and instead they piddle, twiddle, and resolve. Nothing's ever solved when Congress abdicates its duty in this fashion. While they argue about the specific non-binding language in the non-binding resolution, President Bush marches forward, leaving more bodies in his wake.

It wasn't always thus. Rick Perlstein has an interesting article on Salon.com that details how the Congress of a different era produced real legislation that helped to scale down the Vietnam War in the late 60s/early 70s. They could have done a non-binding resolution (in fact, such a resolution was proposed in 1970 by Senator Edmund Muskie), but stronger wills prevailed. Congress can put the brakes on a runaway president. The fact that the current Congress, despite the bluster, won't, is pathetic.

We must stop the madman in the White House. Only our representatives can do this. Write your congressman and senators. Tell them you want action -- real action that produces real results. Not non-binding resolutions and political compromise, but hard and measurable results. We have the power, which means they have the power. The madness must stop.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Surge

So President Bush plans to go ahead with his ill-conceived and universally reviled plan for a "surge" of 20,000 or so troops into Iraq. Most experts agree that this surge, more accurately an escalation of hostilities, will have no noticeable long-term effect, save for the needless deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers (and thousands more Iraqis, no doubt). This action positions Bush as the Nixon of our generation, out of touch with the reality of the war, the pulse of the populace, and the political winds in Congress. He has ignored advice from his generals, his advisers, and his fellow politicians, and truly is living in a delusional reality of his own making.

Bush's troop surge must meet with a matching surge of opposition. As sane and loyal Americans, here is what we must do:

• Contact our senators and congresspeople to register our opposition, and to urge support for legislation that blocks funding for this troop escalation
• Write letters to our local newspapers voicing our opposition
• Remember which politicians are supporting this suicidal surge and make sure that they are not elected to office in the future (that means no executive office for you, Senator McCain)
• Start talking about the possibility of impeachment -- of both the president and the vice-president

Nixon's escalation of the Vietnam War was one of the factors that led to his downfall; it was the first sign to many middle Americans that the president was out of touch with the reality of the times. Hopefully similar good can come from Bush's escalation of the Iraq War -- and lead to his eventual dethroning.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.