messiestobjects: Colbert Electrifies the Blogosphere, and I Get All Political 'n Stuff

I don't normally blog too much about politics or politically-related things, because essentially there are millions of people out there who are much smarter and more research-oriented, and doing it better than I could anyway. The extent of my political feeling is that I dislike politicians intensly, and am probablly an anarchist at heart; Although I realize that Anarchy is hardly a feasible form of governance in reality. I think that Anarchy might be more organized than the the current political reality of crazed bush-whacking, however.
Anyway, regardless of my unpolitical proclivities, no Bush-hating blogger out there can resist making a comment about the recent Stephen Colbert bit at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and I laughed so hard and am so in awe of the man, that I have to post a transcript of his genius here. It's not that any of the things he said are any wittier than things which other people have had to say, although Colbert is certainly telling the despairingly comedic truth. It's that he is saying it without the slightest trace of embarassment or fear 10 feet away from the most powerful and evil man in America, and he doesn't back off. The man has stones, no doubt. Speaking truth to power, indeed.
I wish that people like him had been saying this kind of stuff to Bush's face since before the last election. I pray that the Dems win the upcoming Congressional elections so that there is the remote possibilty of seeing the great ape get his comeuppance... even if that might only mean that Evil Cheney is the fill-in president. There should be a provision in impeachment trials that allow for wholesale Administration impeachments, sort of like a White House Virus-Sweep, Disc-Clean & DeFrag program... the whole Bush Cronystration needs to go, not just it's mouthpiece. It's sad that it's likely too late for such a thing to make much difference in saving America's extremely damaged reputation with the rest of the world, not to mention any thought of reversal of actual death, damage and destruction which they've caused.
Anyway, on a side note and not entirely unrelated, I noticed something the other day while driving through the International Zone: America has been in Baghdad for over 3 years now, and Iraqis still have extremely unreliable electricity. My Iraqi friends tell me that they are currently getting 2 hours of electricity per day. The summer is starting up again, when temperatures typically will rise to between 110 and 130 degrees farenheit daily, and with no power for their Air Conditioners, Iraqis suffer through some long hot days and nights and it is really not fun... just because they are from here and have had these temperatures to deal with all their life does not make it easy for them. They were used to things being infinitely better when Saddam was the boss. Also, I'd like to mention that here in the IZ, we are almost never without power, so what's up with that?
So it's been 3 years and little to nothing has been done about the electricity situation, and I'm sorry, but the line that "Terrorists keep blowing stuff up" is just weak. It's simply not good enough when the brand new US Embassy, which construction began on about 2 months ago, is already extremely well underway. It is being built pretty much right on the Tigris river, with a clear view of the so-called Red Zone, which is military-speak for the part of Baghdad where the unimportant residents of the city are; Iraqis. It will be very easy for someone to shoot something over the river at them, and yet, construction continues at a brisk pace; I bet that barring any RPG attacks, it'll be finished more or less on schedule in 2007. Fixing up the Baghdad power station should not take nearly as much effort, and yet, it's been over 3 years. Every time I drive by the new embassy, there is a noticable difference in the amount of construction completed, and I get rather a sick feeling in my stomach because it makes me think about how obvious my government's priorities are, and how little they have anything to do with what they would have the world believe they are. ITMFA!!!!
It also makes me think about the company I work for, and how, as it turns out, I came to work for a corrupt individual doing shady deals to defraud a corrupt government of it's shady money... and how I really can't untangle my own choices from any of it, regardless of my relative innocence in all of this. I'm just a guy with a job, you know? And I'm really attached to good people here, Iraqi friends who just want to work with us so they can make some decent money for a change, because the alternative Iraqi jobs in the city can be comparatively grim. But I still feel dirty and conflicted about the whole thing. And my stomach just keeps getting more turbulent.
Anyway, I'll leave you with a nice parting shot of Mr. Colbert skewering Bush as he looks on, rather thundercloud-like you might say. It's the most inspiring event I've come across in a very long time.