George Bush - American Malaise

George Bush with his feet up on desk in a small office in Texas. George Bush engaged in a college game cramming himself into a telephone both at Yale along with his fraternity friends. A future president of the United States? These images linger as does his landing on an aircraft carrier in a pilot's outfit declaring victory in Iraq.

This Presidency has disheartened us and made life stale. We are tired of polls, corruption, incompetence, crime, and the exercise of power by a few men and women who claim to be serving America. Both political parties are bluffing and stumbling into the future. It seems that our national and international interests have become Washington's and the White Houses's private game while Americans watch.

The sons and daughters of Americans lost in a manufactured war are forever missed.
The joy and pain of families should be private. It has now become public. Many accept the loss as necessary to preserve a way of life they believe in. Many of their sons and daughters believed it was the right thing to do. To serve their country.

Are the leaders of this country as certain of the correctness of the war in Iraq and against terrorism as these families? It would seem not. There seems to be a disconnect from our ideals as a nation and government. Getting re-elected, posturing, and staying in power seems to be the work of our leaders.

We seem to be rolling from event to event and story to story. The aftermath of natural and man made news falls into a black hole as each new news cycle gets our attention. We are a nation traumatised by 9/11. It does not compare with the trauma of Hiroshima or Dresden or Bhagdad. And yet we justify our aggression as a war on terrorism in response to 9/11.

So we watch and wait. Is that enough? Is that called malaise? Indeed it is.