Some may have heaped invective upon the President-elect of 2000 (and later of 2004), but I kept getting stuck on one short phrase, over and over: "The people get the government they deserve."

Old Ben was right, but I don't know whether he would be able to explain to us now what exactly we did to deserve this. Become complacent, perhaps? Become so comfortable in our belief that we're Numero Uno just because we're Americans and forgot all about the values that brought us here (and no, I don't mean the "values" that say abortion is an abomination and blacks should be held as second-class citizens, I mean values such as "we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard"). Perhaps we've become so obsessed with image rather than substance that we ended up voting for the likeable guy rather than for a competent guy. Perhaps, on our little Olympus, we completely forgot that the rest of the world out there doesn't necessarily think like us, even though they've been kissing up to us (and our nuclear arsenal) for the last half-century.

As the Pres would say, make no mistake about it: this was our fault. Yes, OUR, including those of us who voted against him, and yes, including those of us who berate him now. Were we marching on Washington when he lied to us and attacked Iraq? Some of us were "protesting" in Berkeley or San Francisco. 50% of this nation is 150,000,000 people. That's 150 million-man marches! We didn't get even one.

No, I shouldn't really talk: I didn't even join the Berkeley party. Too busy with work, you know. And that's how we lost our nation. The three years that follow may be a fitting punishment to the failed Empire.

What amazes me is that Rumsfels thinks this "media manipulation" by al-Qaeda (whether real or imagined) to be somehow original and unique. How about the Lincoln Group, which we KNOW plants fake "news" into Iraqi newspapers and gets paid for it by the U.S. military? Even I, a relatively uninformed citizen, can tie a string to those "all's well" pep-talks and trace them back to the U.S. government, which is a whole lot more than the Secretary of Defense can do with his bold assertions. (Given the debacle with the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam supposedly had, I doubt whether Rumsfeld can tie a shoelace to his arse and trace it to his boot.)

I wonder if those boo-tactics work anymore. Rumsfeld's been yelling wolf for so long that should the terrorists break into his house and set it on fire, the police would not bother responding to his 911 call.

Right, so I suppose they may have snagged a couple of Democrats to make this look like a "bipartisan" proceeding. Sigh.

Well, actually, it's a valid question, and I'm going to repeat it: "What happened to respect?" However, I think Matthews used this question in the wrong context. What I'm sure he MEANT to say, what happened to respect that the U.S. government in general and the President in particular were supposed to have for the American people? Watergate used to be the example of the worst violation of this respect, but these days it appears the American people are disrespected so much that the President feels it appropriate to declare, on numerous occasions, that he is allowed to violate the laws of the land as he pleases because (get this!) he knows what's best for us. This should be considered at the very least patronizing!

This is the President who sends thousands of American citizens to die for nothing in an incompetent, empty war that hasn't even achieved its covert objectives (to bring Iraqi oil reserves under our control), let alone the stated objectives (to liberate Iraq). This is the President who knowingly, in an almost Kafka-esque maneuver, condemned New Orleans to death by drowning. This is the President who believes that one confirmed brain-dead individual is a cause to create a law that violates the inalienable rights of all U.S. citizens. This is the President who is so completely out of touch with reality that he fancies himself King of Foreign and Domestic Policy (tm). He may as well wear a crown and call himself Georgius Rex.

Mr. Matthews, really, what happened to respect?