If a Democrat is elected, the wealthy, conservatives who hold the leash of the media, coupled with the correspondents who live on the coasts and are still subconsciously cowering as if they had targets painted on their heads will make sure the narrative continues to follow the same Republican lines. Whatever that Democrat does to cut the losses we've inflicted on our troops, our treasury, and our national honor, not to mention the damage we've inflicted on the Iraqi's themselves will be screamed about by countless hysterical shills as if the sky is falling and the end of the world is just around the corner. In other words, the mainstream media will go from completely subservient unquestioning support of the government to shrill, hysterical opposition. Perhaps the public will get sick of their whining and crying wolf? We can always hope.

The real issue that will create difficulties for the GOP is that they have such a limited view of the world and what's important in it. Because of their dysfunctions, they can only appreciate and accentuate certain things without alienating their own base (27% of the population give or take). The American Public, on the other hand, has had enough of the GOP. We thought they were like us, but now that we see the aftermath they've left us after 7+ years of control, we see they're not like US at all. All they want to do is continue to send our sons and daughters to die while their sons and daughters never volunteer for anything but good deals on vacation packages to exotic places. All they want to do is continue to extract every last cent they can from the middle and lower classes while making sure they, themselves, continue not to pay taxes on income made by playing games with other people's (and now the U.S. treasury's) money. Everything they do to say, "McCain will be the ideal president because he's just like US" will drive people away from McCain. Everything thing they do to say, Obama will be a terrible president because he's not like US at all will just leave the public saying, "Thank God!" All the GOP has to sell is itself and nobody's in the mood to buy. They'll be even less in the mood after $4.00+/gallon gas this summer and a steadily-deepening recession.

It always fascinates me to hear folks like LisaMc talk about the free market as if it were inherently logical and completely rational. Of course it is so on paper. But any system of logic and rationale on paper remains so in the real world only if the people involved in that system from top to bottom have personality types akin to Mr. Spock (if you're too young for the original Star Trek, do a little homework: look it up). In the real world, which includes Wall Street, these systems are filled with people who exhibit all the calm logic of Doc. McCoy. The fact is, in every human system, we humans are the monkey wrench in the works. By our nature, we are the saboteurs who cause the breakdown of every theoretical construct ever applied to the real world, no matter how beautiful that construct may seem on paper. There must always be regulations to protect us from the damage we will do each other by our own human nature (and if you're finding yourself growing angry at that assertion, you're very likely one of those from whom we most need to be protected - "Take the log out of your own eye" and all that). Those regulations must constantly be retuned to adjust to the new and creative ways some of us will devise to subvert them (i.e. new forms of completely opaque investment vehicles).

Before we attempted in any way to take the splinter out of the eye of the Iraqi nation, we should have made at least a token effort to take the log out of our own eyes.

I mean really...

...rebuilding Iraq while things are falling apart at home?

...trying to give the Iraqi's freedoms while erasing them here at home?

...helping the Iraqi's write a new Constitution based on our own, while our leaders are using ours for bathroom tissue?

...asking the Iraqi's to overlook centuries of religious conflict between Shiites and Sunnis while fanning the flames of religious disagreement here at home for political advantage?

...complaining about the number of Iraqis killed by their own government as an excuse to start a war which has killed far more innocent Iraqis in the crossfire and as collateral damage, and displaced millions more?

...complaining the the Iranians have no right nor place sneaking in to assist their Iraqi neighbors, whom they used to despise, who only need their help after we INVADED Iraq on false pretenses?

This war is still being fought because it continues to serve the hidden purposes of those in charge in Washington D.C. They and their friends are making massive money war profiteering on no-bid contracts and in distribution and refining of $100+ per barrel oil. They still intend to lock in contracts that will guarantee that they and their friends will be the middlemen who profit from distribution and refining of Iraq's oil reserves. They still hope to leave permanent bases and a permanent American military presence as a foothold in Iraq to protect their interests, regardless of the cost to the rest of us.

If all that takes 100 years, so be it. It's not their sons and daughters dying in Iraq and it's not their money paying for their use of our military as a mercenary force to create and protect their desired profits, either.

But on this Easter weekend, I wonder if they don't need to consider the implications of this widely-ignored statement by Bush's favorite philosopher: "Blessed are the peacemakers." Being decidedly the opposite of peacemakers, perhaps they should consider that their ultimate fate in this life or the next is likely to be the opposite of blessedness.