I'm Jack's Raging Bile Duct

I reserve the right to reverse my earlier claim of refraining from writing politics. Well, then again, I've pretty much refrained from writing in general, and from what I hear on the street, that has been very welcome. But really, it wasn't that I was making a promise, it is just that I was bored with about writing about it at the time.

However, over the past few months, I've grown increasingly frustrated by our adolescent culture--I don't care if you are on the Right or the Left, most of the behavior and discourse about the central challenge to our way of being has been about as serious as a Monty Python skit and about as deep as a water-hole in middle of sub-Saharan Africa.

Blame, blame, blame. Not-a-one who takes responsibility.

Everyone is finding fault with everyone else but themselves. Meanwhile, our troops are slugging it out in Iraq and Afghanistan with some of the most evil bastards to ever walk the face of the earth. They continue to fight, and fight well, while our public continues to be more interested in discoursing about Britney's snatch, or the Donald vs Rosie. Our press and our media feed it, sometimes through negligence, and sometimes through outright ideologically, partisan nefariousness. This is particularly dangerous because not only do these people speak, the speak LOUDLY, 24-hours-a-day.

Our Congress--Republicans and Democrats before and after the mid-term elections--are more interested in securing enough votes for the next election and have postured the war to the death. Insight hasn't historically been Congress's strong suit, but their actions have been purely selfish in a time where a little discretion and self-control is needed while our troops are in harm's way.

In the middle of this, we have a Commander and Chief who, for no reason I can substantively see, has NOT been the cowboy his critics claimed he was. For the life of me, I haven't figured out why he didn't just embrace it and scare the living hell out of every regime in the Middle East that has declared proxy war on us since the 70's. We are not in a war against Iraq, we are in a war in Iraq against al-Qaeda, Syria, Iran and various other elements of radical Islamism that continues to collectively form the biggest threat, not just to the West, but to the entire World. Iraq is the epicenter, but for some reason, this idea is not being communicated from the White House, even though there is enough evidence out there that demonstrates that the President understands this.

There is plenty of blame to go around, and I wholeheartedly accept my decadent and lazy attitude in this. However, I'm officially on the record as being heavy with disappointment with how we have responded when "the going got tough." I'm not Andrew Sullivan-like, emotionally disappointed, I'm geniunely aggrieved that we are going to retreat before any of the real fighting has even started. With history as my guide, I'm certain that the real fight will happen; the only question being a matter of "when."

I wish Patton was still alive, so he could take his gloves off and collectively slap us in the face as we sit sobbing in our self-pity while good men and women are fighting in the front of this battle without hesitation or complaint.

God Bless the troops who continue to carry our cause on their backs, because we sure as hell aren't going to do it.