I remember September 11, 2001, all too well. Sept. 11 is my birthday, a non-descript day until that day 5 years ago. Now no one forgets my birthday.

What I find so fantastically amazing is how anyone can say that Bush's actions, or speeches, gestures, or words, were anywhere close to inspiring. First, we had Bush hiding from no one-- flying around the country, dodging any risk of danger. Then we had him landing, and spinning the Shanksville crash as headed for the White House- a solipsistic tale at best, Machievellian and diabolical at worst.

What followed was absurdist at best-- we were united as a nation because fanatics of the same stripe as those we had elected-- God's ostensibly chosen children had blown up a couple of buildings. Everyone in the country ran around donating blood, unneeded, to no end.

And New Yorkers? Nothing was more memorable than the fresh breeze blown through the waft of Kool-Aid vapor than the brief, reserved interview given on NPR by Gay Talese and Lewis Lapham. Their gaze of lucidity through the pandemonium and illusion? "New York has always been, and still is the capital of arrogance and the city of the bottom line." To this day, I still don't know which gentleman said this, but the honesty still rings through to this day. If New York stands for anything, it's that if lots of people are going to live together, it's best not to count on their fundamental nature. You need government-- real government, that really considers the needs, as well as avarices, of the governed.

But instead, the media, and the American people Drank the Koolaid. And that Koolaid has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, as well as an American spirit that believes it's perfectly fine to turn other countries into parking lots, and other people's lives to Hell on Earth, as long as whatever the solution that is given doesn't affect the ability of us to drive our SUVs.

We lost a lot on 9/11. We lost our residual sense of dignity. And we've only recently started getting it back. We can only hope that the trend continues.

ABC and its conservative Iranian author definitely have fun with the truth, bashing Ds and leaving the incompetent Bush free to read "The Pet Goat" in private. But we have bigger problems with disinformation in this country than this.

Consider that in a recent poll, 85% of the U.S. military enlisted troops believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 -- or a poll last year that showed that 69% of Americans believed the same.

These are bigger problems than whether America believes in some version of "Wag the Dog." The reality was that during the time the nation could have prevented an incident like 9/11 -- the time frame from 1997-2000, the Rs were attacking anything Clinton did as an attempt to distract America from the biggest concern that the Rs had on display-- whether Bubba had a little too much fun.

The Right Wing networks have been blaming Clinton for everything wrong in the world for the last 12 years, and elevating the status of its corrupt commentators for the same time period. One more TV show will hardly matter, one way or the other.

Karl Rove is no genius-- because it doesn't take a genius to understand American politics and the real level of political education of the American populace.

Most Americans are middle-class. Middle class people tend to know a lot about what affects them (their job, fantasy football, what's going on in the office) and desire any course that maintains the comfort level of the status quo, along with a chance to get rich. Republicans understand this perfectly. They know that outside that box, you can tell people anything, and if you say it with enough authority, they'll believe it.

In 1995, as an environmental activist, I had access to polling information that showed before the infamous "Logging Without Laws" salvage rider, that basically let the US Forest Service log wherever they wanted, that 80% of the American public believed that NO TIMBER WAS SOLD OR CUT on the National Forests-- a practice that has been going on since the beginning of the last century.

In 2001, after the very successful Roadless Initiative campaign run by the Heritage Forest Campaign, where over 1 million people sent in comments in favor of stopping logging in the last remaining wild places in our National Forests (not the entire territory involved), the poll numbers came back-- 80% believed that National Forests were not logged at all. The same figure.

About this time, GWB was ready to assume the office, and naturally I was terrified. I realized that even a coordinated movement, with STRONG response (the Roadless Initiative gathered more public comment to a government agency than ANY other initiative in history) would make no headway against a deliberate disinformation campaign by the government.

This applies cross-issue. I haven't been involved with the abortion issue, but I'm willing to bet that most people have no idea that Roe vs. Wade only applies to the first trimester, and has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the famous "partial birth abortion" issue that the Right has used to undermine this basic women's right.

Karl Rove is no genius for realizing that he can lie to the American public and get away with it. He just figured out that he had to accept the statistics.

As long as we run individuals for public office on nebulous concepts of "character" and "morals", we'll see more Karl Roves. We as an electorate have to get serious about our responsibility to be informed.