The end of the world as we know it....

And I don't feel fine!

Dr. Magoo and Schmidlap have raised very important points concerning the long-term prospects for the country. I have wrestled with variations of this issue before, as I have noted that if this technology had been available 20 years ago, I would not have been moved to write every day about my seething contempt for the White House. Oh, it was there, as the Keystone Kops of the Reagan administration took us to war in Grenada to protect the world's strategic supply of nutmeg, and equated Nicaraguan death squads with our founding fathers, but most days I just didn't think about it.

What is different?

Well, for one thing, Reagan's follies, and their attendant scandals, didn't threaten the severe and permanent domestic and international harm that the disaster in Iraq presents. We also had congressional government by consensus, where bi-partisanship deserved more than lip service, and a Democratic party that was not cowed into subservience.

We also had not seen the "Limbaugh-ification" of America yet, where one is vilified and de-humanized for disagreeing with the administration and called a traitor for questioning their judgment on matters of national security.

But perhaps the biggest difference may be found in one simple word: legitimacy. Defined in the dictionary as "lawfulness by virtue of being authorized or in accordance with law, or undisputed credibility," the notion of legitimacy in our system has been a necessary component of sovereignty ("supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign".)

We have been assaulted, however, with two consecutive presidential elections in which we have no confidence in the outcome. What Reagan and Bush Sr. cast upon us was our fault, in a constitutional sense. Like it or not, no one could argue whether they were lawfully elected to the presidency. Today, though, it gnaws at us that this nightmare may not be of our making. A usurper sits in the Oval Office, is leading us down a disastrous path, has poll numbers comparable to serial killers and for more than three years, we can't do a damn thing about it.