Through the Looking Glass

I'm still trying to get my bearings in this new world we're living in. And just when I think I'm finally on solid ground, something new comes along to make me queasy and unsure again.

On this side of the Looking Glass, George W. Bush is a war hero. He bravely protected Alabama from the Viet Cong, when he could have gone to England like that sleazeball Bill Clinton. On the other hand, John Kerry is an amoral bastard, who only volunteered for Vietnam so he could arrange some superficial self-inflicted flesh wounds, get an early out, and then betray his country alongside Hanoi Jane Fonda.

On this side of the Looking Glass, John Kerry's 20-year career in the Senate is "undistinguished." Meanwhile, George Bush is a regular guy, a self-made man, despite failing upward his entire life, and being bailed out every step of the way. When John Kerry entered the Senate, GWB was an admitted alcoholic and probably drug addict, running every business he worked on into the ground. But it's John Kerry's Senate record that's the issue.

On this side, Joe McCarthy is a national hero and internment of Japanese U.S. citizens during World War II was a fantastic idea.

On this side, George W. Bush - who presided with cowardliness over the greatest attack on U.S. soil in history, let the perps go, and then ran headlong into a conflict with a nation with no connections to that attack - is the better choice to defend this country against terrorists.

Saddam Hussein was instrumental in the 9/11 attacks.

Bush continuing to read to children while the country was under attack showed admirable restraint, while Howard Dean's "scream" at a campaign event proved that he was unbalanced and unfit to run for dogcatcher, much less President.

Fox News is "Fair and Balanced."

Dean Esmay is a "liberal" and a "citizen journalist."

Deficits don't matter. (My credit card company, alas, feels otherwise.)

All of this may seem laughable to those of us on the left side of the aisle in this country. But why are these things accepted as fact by such wide swaths of the U.S. population? This side of the Looking Glass is a scary place.

Send me back, please.