You Call THIS Keeping America Safe?

It's really annoying at best and infuriating at worst to see what's going on in these United States while I'm trying to enjoy the Christmas season. Even as George W. Bush was freshly elected to a second term on the grounds that he can keep America safe, I find the Newark, N.J. Star-Ledger greeting me in the morning with headlines like this one:

Newark officials say four men gunned down Tuesday were all gang members. They insist average citizens shouldn't worry.

BRAZEN BLOODSHED

As city's homicide rate surges, anti-violence groups express alarm

Meanwhile, Bush is promoting his new plans for tearing the heart out of Social Security and encouraging "medical savings accounts" as a substitute for public health insurance as part of a plan to encourage good citizenry through personal ownership of privatized services - an "ownership society" (i.e., if you don't own anything, you don't belong in this society).

And if that weren't enough proof that America has become a Carrollian Wonderland where everything is the opposite of itself, consider this for good laugh - the other day, in recognizing their service in the Iraq War, Bush awarded the Medal of Freedom to former CIA director George Tenet (who called the evidence pointing to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq "a slam dunk") and former Coalition Provisional Authority chairman L. Paul Bremer (who disbanded the Iraqi army and mishandled the Iraqis' transition to a post-Saddam government, all while professing virtual ignorance of Iraqi society). The Medal of Freedom? If I made a colossal mistake on the job that embarrassed my boss, I'd have been given the boot!

Oh yeah, that's right - that actually happened to me! Guess I should have worked in the White House, where incompetence is routinely rewarded!

(P.S. Former Central Command leader General Tommy Franks also got the Medal of Freedom, but given his insistences that he needed more troops to pacify Iraq after the invasion and was all but ignored, he's the only one of these three who deserves a medal of any kind!)