| From Capitol Hill Blue The Rant This highway leads to the shadowy tip of reality: That train to weirdness blew right through the next stop, crashed the gates separating reality from bizarreness, plunging us headlong into a Twilight Zone that even Rod Serling’s fertile mind could not invent. It doesn’t matter, really, if you are Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, left or fight. You’re trapped, just the same, between reality and political fantasy, between a world where common sense should prevail and one where political expediency rules, suspended in that ether zone between what is right and what can be sold to a gullible public. Serling, in his wildest hallucinations, could not have conjured up a more bizarre world: a radar operator cannot identify a flock of geese on his screen so the White House is locked down while Secret Service agents pack the President and Vice President off to “secure” locations to protect them from terrorist waterfowl. In California, a woman claims she chomped down on a finger in her bowl of Wendy’s chili, sending the media on a feeding frenzy that ends with the woman under arrest for fraud. In Georgia, a bride cannot face the prospect of a lavish wedding with 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen so she hops a bus to New Mexico while police, fearing she has been abducted, launch a nationwide manhunt. When found, she first claimed she was kidnapped then admitted she simply ran away. Now she may be charged. Each week, the so-called “cable news channels” devote four times more airplay to the Michael Jackson trial-cum-circus than to Americans dying in the Iraq war. The top-rated afternoon show on network television is Dr. Phil where neurotics tell their troubles to the world while the good doctor offers homilies like “get a life!” On Capitol Hill, those who should show some leadership waste their time and our tax dollars calling each other names while putting political agendas above what is best for America. Republicans defend House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a known crook and scoundrel, not because he deserves their support but simply because he is a member of their party and they value political loyalty above their county. Democrats, determined to stop Republicans at all cost, put their own agendas ahead of the nation and bring Congress to a politically-stalemated halt. No winners and everyone loses. The end result is a America trapped by its own foolishness, a once-great nation turned into a cosmic, bizarre sitcom, a society where truth becomes a disposable commodity in the marketplace of political expediency. Amid all this madness stands a delusional fool who thought he could walk away from the circus, avoid the seduction of its madness and live a peaceful, oblivious life in his mountain hideaway, far from the insanity. Silly me. © Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue |