So will the US electorate lay down in the poppy field sowed by right-wing propagandists and tilled so dutifully by the corporatist media?
Well, what do you think? How does it feel? What does recent history tell you? What do our present circumstances foretell?
In Berlin, Barack Obama single-heartedly re-connected the US psyche with the psyche of the planet as a whole, and our European allies in particular. In Berlin, Barack Obama single-heartedly re-aligned US aspirations with those of the civilized world.
But within 72 hours, Steve Schmidt, the Rove acolyte in control of McCain's message, had succeeded in not just distracting the public with Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears but insinuating them into the campaign itself.
It is time to get out your list, and start reading it aloud in the town square.
Yes, you have a list.
All of us in the progressive blogosphere and on progressive talk radio have our own version of the list.
Here is a partial iteration of mine --
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets that the slaughter of the innocents on 9/11 is likely the direct result of criminal negligence in the White House.
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets that the invasion of Iraq, and all of the carnage and chaos that followed -- including thousands of US military deaths, and perhaps one million Iraqi deaths, not to mention the trillion dollar cost of this ongoing debacle -- was unnecessary and predicated on lies.
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets where Bush and McCain were as New Orleans was destroyed in the deluge.
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets what happened to the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Accords, FOIA, FISA, and the meaning and power of Congressional subpoenas.
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets that the Bush-Cheney regime was illegitimate from its inception, and that unprecedented (and unconstitutional) executive power was offered up to men who were sworn into office under false pretenses. (Florida was stolen in 2000, and Ohio was stolen in 2004.)
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets the firing of the DoJ attorneys, the persecution and imprisonment of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, or the betrayal of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.
There is so much to remember, but it all boils down to one word -- catastrophe.
And McCain has embraced this catastrophe every step of the way.
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