Goodbye to 2004, another year of living stupidly

One of the blessings of having been around a long time is that in any dark moment of our national life you can usually think of another moment that, if you put your mind to it, seemed almost as dark or maybe darker: McCarthyism, Watergate, the disaster of Vietnam. But never in the memory of the living generation have the errors, falsifications and unreason of policy come in such rapid and overwhelming succession that each buries its predecessor before it's even partially absorbed, much less understood. The result is an historic dynamic of error, dishonesty and corruption that's far more frightening than any individual event. The counterpoint of revelations of flawed and myopic foreign policy decisions against the deepening quagmire overseas is itself so overwhelming that most people must have trouble keeping track of it. [more]