Attorney General Michael Mukasey today prevented what would undoubtedly have proven to be the worst case of writer's cramp in human history when he declared that violations of the law are not crimes.

  President George W. Bush immediately called Mukasey and thanked him profusely for eliminating the need for one of the most tedious jobs on the lame-duck president's to-do list: writing out a series of presidential pardons for every person who had ever done anything ever for the BushCheney administration.

I've written several diaries about my efforts to bring Democratic change to the still solidly Republican, rural area where I grew up and now live.  There are some of the old values of my rural childhood, however, that I miss.

Let me be up front and say I was never a big Edwards Supporter unlike seemingly most of the Netroots. I was always pretty ambivalent about the guy, liked his politics and his wife a lot more than I liked him, but he was never my "A" Option when it came to Presidential picks. Nor did I see him as this Progressive Hero, nor did I see him as my Hero.

So when I heard about the affair allegations I didn't care all that much, but I assumed them to be true, because, well, honestly, I just assume everyone has a little something on the side, or a game they run, or a racket they play. No one does anything just out of the pure kindness of his or her moral convictions. Deep down everyone is a bit of a sinner. Deep down everyone is a little corrupt. Deep down everyone is a little morally bankrupt.

Especially politicians; whether they are from the Left or the Right.

That's right, Virginia, there are cynics in the world. And I am one of them.

Everyday we are hit with hundreds of thousands of various stimuli that if we had to attend to, we would either get nothing done or we would get so caught up in the molecular that we would fail to see the big picture even assuming we could function at this level of reality.

So we do many things, we habituate to our surroundings, we only notice things that are different then they should be, are out of place.

We develop ways to save time since we do not have time to examine every event in our life--to survive our day.

One of the tools we also use is to form perceptions of events we encounter. Often times these perceptions reflect reality as it is, other times they do not. But for us, these perceptions become reality. It does not matter if in the "real world" they are "real" but for us they are "real" and that is what counts. Why? Since these perceptions impact our behavior and what we do.

<More after the break>

True story. The scene is a Manhattan supper club, circa 1952. Eleanor Roosevelt approaches a table at which John and Elaine Steinbeck are dining. Elaine makes introductions, and then...

Eleanor Roosevelt: "When I go to the Soviets, they ask, 'Does that awful treatment of farmers still happen in the U.S.?’ I say, 'No, my husband and John Steinbeck took care of that.’"

John Steinbeck: "That is the best literary review I've ever received."

-- National Steinbeck Center video archive

Obama has to take a break from the campaign.  He hasn't spent time with his family in weeks.  He and his wife decide to visit Rainbow Lake.

McCain has heard about this.  He thinks it's a great idea.  He and his family will also go to Rainbow Lake.

I really don't know a damned thing about Kant. Something about reality, duality -- maybe.

It has become fashionable to lament the high cost of health care and college tuition to name but two services provided to the American public.  Both were never designed to become cottage industries, and yet both have become sprawling masses of inefficiency.  This we know.  This is something politicians have latched onto and incorporated in their stump speeches, but hardly anyone ever addresses the reasons for the increased cost.    

Doing so would force us to confront a few unpleasant realities about these fields, their impact in our daily lives, and just how unruly and undisciplined these industries have become.  It would be wonderful to see a politician speak the truth about these problems, rather than merely reiterating our grumbling without proposing an adequate solution to fix it.

As we wait for the many coming books, I'm sure more will be surfacing, as many try to cleanse their souls, of these last eight years plus, in seeking their higher kingdom, we might have the time to take this seemingly telling descriptive tale into the fold of good reading. We could even make the copies a collective item reminding us, in a comfortable way, of what we've been put through, us and the rest of the world. Comfortable because it might not enrage as we read and study the pictures, like the hard reality of the history will.

Simply put...

So this is what it's come to here?  Are people here DELUSIONAL?  

Can't people here separate what they see actors doing on TV from REALITY?

Right now, the McCain Heebie Jeebies video diary is at the top of the recommended list.

Can someone please explain why?

At least the "bad teeth" diary was about something real -- McCain's somewhat yellowed teeth.  

This one is based in some sort of utter delusional nonsense -- that somehow McCain playing a creepy husband in a skit on SNL is somehow indicative of his true charter.

Are those of you who recommended this divorced from reality?  Please explain!

I originally wrote this essay for a 2006 Vanity Fair essay contest. It did not, of course, win. However, I wish to inflict upon (share with) the DK community my rambling musings on the state of our nation.
I hope that this piece does not seem dated - a lot can happen in two years. I still firmly believe that it applies to the Zeitgeist.
Input, criticisms and debunking, as always, are much appreciated.

The problem that arises when two people viewing the same events come to opposing conclusions, is when one tries to convince (or coerce) the other into accepting that their "reality" is the "correct" one. It's called fundamentalism when applied to religion. What's it called in politics? Liberals are capable of doing it to the same degree as anyone else, and Hunter is essentially doing the same thing when he condemns those of opposing conclusions with his judgmental quip: "I reject the very premise of your reality, and have built my own version down here in the dank basement of my own mind."

Don't get me wrong - I mostly view the world through the same lens as Hunter, but where we part company is when those on the other side are portrayed as evil simply because they see the world differently.

My mother lives a thousand miles away.  She and my father are both Republicans.  My father became a "fan" when he started listening to the obscene filth of Rush Limbaugh and for some reason disengaged his critical thinking skills.  I had a screaming fight with him when I was about 23.  I had done some research about his claims, actually read his bullshit book, and I had refuted him in every way possible in my mind.  The man is an obscene liar and a piece of garbage, and I told my father so.

Now, gotta keep in mind that I was considered a prodigy growing up.  I started reading at age 4.  By age 6 I was regularly reading adult science fiction books.  At 9 I read "The Shining."  At 10 I received the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a gift and promptly burned through it in about 3 days.  I read 900 wpm.  I was at college level by age 8.  I was the first person in my family to actually attend college, and I finished with a 3.78 gpa.  

My father's response to my criticism of Limbaugh was to tell me that I couldn't read.

This is a message to the Hillary supporters who are wondering this:

Yes, it is.  But it is time to get real.  In November there's a lot more on the line than one person's vanity.

Robert Penn Warren talked about two major concepts in his novel All The King's Men.  Through the character of Jack Burden, we the reader are introduced to both:  The Great Twitch and The Great Sleep.

As former First Lady of the "First Black President", I wonder if, upon losing, as surely she will...Hillary can deliver a speech as humble, as unifying, as inspirational and motivating as this one by Jesse Jackson in 1988.

Take a listen

One of the biggest criticisms of all these reality shows is that there's nothing 'really' real about them.

They are programmed. They are scripted. Most importantly however, they are intended to invoke shock, curiousity, and yes, emotion.

Plain and simple - It sells.