AMERICA THE BOOBYFUL

During the Bush/Cheney years, the Republicans had their chance to show what their ideas meant in the real world.

The rich got richer, everybody else got left behind, the economy was destroyed by parasites from within, the Constitution was shredded, the leaders of the government used their positions and powers for the personal gain of themselves and their cronies.

Things got so bad, we actually elected a black President.

Now it's two years later. Some of the mess has gotten cleaned up. We have started back on a path to decency and strength and prosperity. But we were in a very deep hole and we have a long way to go.

But we elect Presidents, not Popes. Obama has had to work within a political system designed to have checks and balances and limits to power, against a cynical and traitorous political opposition that is PROUD of the damage they did to the rest of us because THE RICH GOT RICHER. That's who they work for after all, that's who owns the news channels and talk radio stations and bizarro right wing pressure groups.

Obama has been more of a centrist than an extremist, and it can be frustrating watching him try to work with the utterly corrupt America-hating GOP. But he is working for a better future for all of us, and we are making progress. He's right that things will get immeasurably worse if the Congress goes Republican.

Unfortunately, too many Americans are too dumb to remember how bad things were and how much worse things were getting two years ago. We like to think of ourselves as Number One, and we were for a while.

But in the end, we get the government we deserve. And if we vote for the liars and thieves and fools and bigots that populate the Republican Party these days, we will destroy ourselves and our future the way many other great nations of the past destroyed themselves.

We have a chance to keep moving forward, with Obama and the Democrats in charge. Or we can hold our noses and jump back down the rathole with the GOP. Who are we? What happens next?

Welcome to America the Boobyful?

Too bad. We had a chance to be great.