Defining Downwards

I've been caught up in the whole prosecutor scandal, in case you haven't noticed. But I think it's important not because of the circus show of congressional hearings, or even because of the seriousness of the underlying bad acts. No, I think it's important enough to waste my time with adding to the droning chorus (Because, after all, I'm not very good at this sort of thing and others do and say it all much, much better) because I think it's time to draw a line and start fighting. Start becoming involved, start caring, and stop allowing things to erode further.

Because what really bothers me about this whole scandal isn't in the details it's that it's yet another scandal from this administration that seems increasingly distanced from reality. And the net effect of all of them has been to set new lows for partisan behavior. The real story here isn't that eight prosecutors were fired, it's that 85 weren't. And how the justice department, like so many other branches of government, has been politicized by an overreaching administration with the complicit help of a slumbering legislature. There's little denying at this point that those prosecutors were fired for little reason other than their refusal to aid the Republican machine preserve their majority - what, exactly, have the other prosecutors been doing that let them pass that litmus test?

One of the saddest days I've had in recent memory was opening the morning paper to the editorial page. There, in the midst of yet another presidential scandal that was boiling over at the time, I found a staggering defense of whatever it was the administration was scrambling to defend - if memory serves, this time, it was the torture debate. But, really, pick your favorite civil liberty and how it's been curtailed over the past six years. As I read that op-ed piece, I realized that there literally was nothing so low that this administration could stoop that they wouldn't be vigorously defended. No standards they wouldn't erase in their foolish attempt to gain and hold power.

This, after all, is still America. And while I'm not so naive as to think there were never any such things as torture or extraordinary rendition or government surveillance of its citizens, there was at least a time when we had the dignity to be ashamed that they were necessary evils. The world isn't perfect and we need to do what we can to protect our corner of it. But that doesn't mean that we need to have a "debate" about the unfathomable. It's the moral majority, the conservatives who seem to have the biggest problems with any kind of relativism. So why is it that it's liberals, like myself, who are more concerned with keep the fragile lines of civil society in place?

From the very beginning from editing scientific reports to attempting to use the death of Mr. Tillman, this administration has engaged in a systematic attempt to rewrite reality with their own. It's been extremely disheartening because everytime I think it can't get worse, it does.

It's like Mugatu - "Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

After the recent elections I, and a lot of others, I think, felt some hope for the first time. And perhaps with all the mundane facts of everyday life, I've lost that hopeful gleam in my eye. It's hard, after all, to hold out hope in this cynical world. But, now, I think our standards have been lowered enough. And this might not be much but it's all I can think to do at the moment.