Outside Counsel

Rafe Colburn has it right: "One of the most frustrating things to me is that it seems so screamingly obvious to me that Bush has to go, that he's not just a bad politician but that he is an absolute danger to the things that make America the great country that it is, and yet probably half of the people in this country see him as a good leader. What do they see that I don't see? Don't the huge structural changes in our country's fiscal position totally scare the crap out of them? Aren't they alarmed by the fact that he seeks to justify his destructive and undermining foreign policy by keeping us in constant fear? Doesn't it bother them that Bush runs around talking about the resurgent economy when the employment situation totally sucks, we're down millions of jobs from when he began, and wages are completely stagnant? Indeed, one of the biggest problems I face when explaining to people why Bush is just so darn bad is that I honestly don't know where to begin. How could I and so many other people be so far apart on this? It baffles me." One place to start might be to point out that at a time when the threat to each individual American's personal security-- physical, economic, you name it-- is greater than it has been in generations-- maybe ever-- we are more polarized than we have ever been, more alienated from our government, and more isolated from the rest of the world. Maybe that last one doesn't seem so important, but it is the most important. There was a moment when the world stood with us, and now we stand alone. The Bush administration has accomplished what the Soviet Union never could-- it has isolated the United States, and taken away our ability to credibly assert that we hold the moral high ground.