As a five year old, the resulting fallout from this speech may have a major effect on his future�and if he is reading this later in life, I fully apologize for not giving him the decision to hear (or not) the words that are due to land before both houses of Congress. From my current perspective, he does deserve to BE a child and have the na�vet� that allows him to relish and fully enjoy those daily things that every little person should have�.

It just doesn't seem fair for him to have to try to get his head around a prospective war right now. Especially one that his Only-Viable-Parent doesn�t see with the black and white clarity that allowed us to go into (however late, from this human�s view) World War II and help to save the world from evil phucks. Now we have a ton of gray areas. And things seem grayer by the day. [Things other than being the only parent of an amazing little boy who is so very much loved and relished and deserves as much of being a kid as he can get.]

This particular program is probably going to turn my stomach--so watching it afterwards as recorded on a hard-drive is just fine. As a person who stands deeply and dearly behind the reasons for the existence of our form of government and the American people as a whole this is going to be tough to swallow.

[Shit. I was going to say democracy, instead of �form of government,� and then thought a ton about whether we were actually still a true democracy. I guess we are. Most pholks just don�t use their franchise. Nor want to�as it would cramp their noggins. Thus we have a gent with the nickname: The Shrub as our president.]

It is easy to believe with all my heart in the wayward ideals that created our United States. Some of them are deeply abridged at the moment, and others (like my ability to espouse my confusion in this type of forum) continue unabated.

My childhood was not that long ago. We learned about the many, many things that we were told that America stood for� stuff like freedom, liberty, equality, and individualism.

It is funny that we don�t hear much about that I-word on the end these days. [Funny=odd.]

It might be even funnier that someone who would consider himself a patriot (and would say so minus a bunch of negative connotations that have been ladled onto that word from both the right and the left) and has served his country in multiple capacities would be so deeply concerned about having been labeled �against us.� You know? The part where our less-than-bright-light-bulb of a figurehead�s spin-doctors concocted a guilt-trip that made the rest of the free world and a fair percentage of Americans BAD if they didn�t agree with our heavy-handed tactics in this post Nine One-One world? Couldn�t I be for us�and not with Shrub-Boy�s version of the future?

Couldn�t I believe with all my might that the Al Qaida�s of the world are a bigger clear and present danger than a nepotistic bastard who sits on a bunch of oil and mistreats his own people in an appalling manner (or that Kim-run North Korea thing with prospective Weapons Of Mass Destruction could be a bigger problem than the head of the ba�ath party being such an asshole.)

Frigging Christ On A Pogo Stick� DatSauce guy has sure tried to keep politics out of this diary�but being a parent and having to decide whether to allow someone like my ginger-haired wonder child to peep at the State of the Union is as good an excuse as any to let it slip in because the coming months may see us finally disaffecting the Arab world to the point where more Nine One-One�s (please, no.) are a regular occurrence.

There�s a bit from the Daily Breeze in an article by John Bogert where he is talking to the deeply respected Helen Thomas (veteran White House reporter) that continues to ring through my head.

***snipped excerpt �, Daily Breeze, January 19, 2002,***

She seemed to have sympathy and affection for everyone but George W. Bush, a man who she said is rising on a wave of 9-11 fear � fear of looking unpatriotic, fear of asking questions, just fear. �We have,� she said, �lost our way.�

Thomas believes we have chosen to promote democracy with bombs instead of largess while Congress �defaults,� Democrats cower and a president controls all three branches of government in the name of corporations and the religious right.

As she signed my program, I joked, �You sound worried.�

�This is the worst president ever,� she said. �He is the worst president in all of American history.�

The woman who has known eight of them wasn�t joking.

***snipped excerpt �, Daily Breeze, January 19, 2002,***

--DaSauceOfAllSpinDoctorsNightmares