Yes, I'm Still Alive

Yes, I heard about the Missouri mall shooting.

Yes, I read Dan Simpson's wet-dream op-ed on banning guns in America.

Yes, I read Walter Shapiro's Salon op-ed on repealing the Second Amendment.

Yes, I've heard all the buzz about George "It's Not My Fault!" Tenet's new book. Yes, I know about his vivid recollection (both in print and on 60 Minutes) of meeting with Richard Perle in the White House on 9/12/01, and being shocked upon hearing Perle tell him that "Iraq bears responsibility" for 9/11. Except that Richard Perle was in France on 9/12... Stuck on the ground there until flights were again allowed on 9/15. Which leads me to wonder what else the Director of the CIA could be wrong about?

Yes, I know that Fred Thompson is considering running for President. Yes, I know the first debate between the Democrat contenders for the Oval Office in 2008 recently took place, and yes, I know that they all flew to South Carolina on individual private jets - and then stood there and talked about "conservation." Except Kucinich. I'm pretty sure he used alien technology and teleported.

Yes, I know that the weekend overpass accident on California's I-580 conclusively disproves Rosie O'Donnell's assertion that "I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel." Damn, Rosie! It happened again! (Maybe this whack job will learn something, too.)

Yes, I know that "global warming" is accelerating and threatens to completely destroy the South polar ice cap - on Mars. We need to send Al Gore there to give a speech.

Yes, I know that gas is approaching $3 per gallon. I just spent the last three weeks in California. Regular unleaded is going for about $3.35 in the Oakland area.

I'm pretty up-to-speed on current events. I've noted that others are covering it quite well - and, to be honest, I'm pretty burned out at the moment. I have nothing nice to say, and I'm not in the mood to be snarky. I'm pretty much in a "burn it all down" mode at the moment, at least where it comes to society. The new job is pretty good, though, so I'm devoting my energies to that.

Let me close with this piece I received by email this morning. It's entitled "The Speech President Bush Should Give."

Normally, I start these things out by saying "My Fellow Americans." Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not fellow Americans any longer.

I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: there's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.

The reason I'm quitting is simple. I'm fed up with you people.

I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world. Or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.

Let's start local. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that's despite record numbers of homeowners including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners. And while we're mentioning minorities, I'll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton Administration. I've mentioned all those things before, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.

Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than refinery capacity and your economic security.

We face real threats in the world. Don't give me this "blood for oil" thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this 'Bush Lied People Died' crap either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be 'discovered.' Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named 'Clinton' established that policy. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.

That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That'd be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you. And the bastards are all over the globe.

You should be grateful that they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that. When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of 'Survivor'.

Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.

Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat's political campaign, well, dammit, you might just as well Fedex a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.

In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.

I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching. I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.

So I quit. I'm going back to Crawford. I've got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.

Oh, and by the way, Cheney's quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that they're just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.

So that's it. God bless what's left of America. Some of you know what I mean.

I got this T-shirt for my birthday this year:

Sometimes, though, it's just not funny. That speech should be funny too, but a big part of me says "He ought to do it."

The fourth Blogiversary of TSM is in a couple of weeks. I promise, I'll be posting again before that. What kind of mood I'll be in I cannot predict.