Respite, respite and nepenthe!

Anymore, all I have to do to have enough vitriol to really get me going is to read the news. For those of who you don't know, I have conservative sympathies. I do. But I also have just a tinge of common sense. And that's enough to land me right in the middle of a subdued rage any time I read the news.

I just read this article from "San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily." Give me a break. Anyway, it's an article full of moral posturing, going so far as to describe the author's (note, not journalist's) political opinion as a "sacred duty". It's ridiculous that this kind of thing gets touted as news because it has some numbers in it. It's not political analysis, it's not prediction, it's not even reporting. It's an opinion piece in the guise of a headline.

Yes, Congress is nothing but a bunch of sissy career politicians vying for reelection. Yes, the president is delusional and completely unconcerned about public opinion. Yes, 70% of Americans are "against" the war in Iraq (meaning that 70% of those people wearing black berets and munching on bran muffins at Starbucks are against it, when phased in such a way as to indicate the camera-weilding questioner's preference to a certain response), and over 60% think that we should get out now.

Let's think for a moment. The likelihood that most people asked this question have read Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Choice or any comprarable and well-researched argument approaches zero. Let's also consider that, having almost no real information other than that provided by TV news, most Americans can be considered utterly uninformed about anything more relevant than Paris Hilton's stay in the LA County Jail, let alone world events and the global terrorism issue. Can anyone actually argue responsibly that we should be making policy decisions about such titanically complicated problems based on the contrived extraction of "opinion" from an uninformed, overweight public addicted to Dancing with the Stars? Are you kidding me? I'd threaten to move to Canada, but it's where all the morons from my college years promised to move if George Bush were reelected (however, much like their favored candidate in 2004, they changed their minds in the light of actual information (in this case, that moving to another country requires work, a phenomenon with which their silver-spooned childhoods never had time to acquaint them)).

It's times like this that I appreciate Ann Coulter. For those of you who think she's out there to push some radical worldview, you should stop reading this, right now, and turn on E! so you can catch up on the news that matters. For those of you who got past that test, keep reading; you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. The people who are turned off by Ann Coulter are idiots on the grounds that they think she's serious. This woman is utterly brilliant: she has achieved the highest possible form of media criticism. I believe her every stance is a calculated mockery of the lunacy she sees in the newspapers and on TV all the time. She's a conservative, of course, but she's not the crazy bitch that people make her out to be. She just doesn't give a damn about being liked, especially by "the liberals" (who she loves to lump all together). Read her books, seriously. They're like Al Franken's books, only funny and with a few facts thrown in for kicks. My favorite one so far is Godless: The Church of Liberalism. It's also her newest. Also, you're not allowed to quote it derisively unless you've read the whole thing. It's a fairly tight argument, and though I can't remember how long it is (I'll check my autographed copy when I get home), it's not longwinded.

We out.