Righteously Angry

It's just over an hour until the debate, and perhaps I'll feel a bit better afterward, but right now I could chew nails over the way things are going in the presidential race. That is to say, I almost wish I had a bottle of whatever it was that Brick was drinkin' in front of Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Then I could join in on the Mendacity Chorus 'cause I too "am sick and tired of mendacity."

("Mendacity," Big Daddy will shout at both Brick and me. "Don't talk to me about mendacity. I could write a book about it!")

It isn't a book, but Jonah Goldberg has a column at today's National Review Online (NRO) that captures my sentiments exactly. I suspect Jonah would be willing to join our Mendacity Chorus. He captures the righteous anger that many of us are struggling to contain as John Kerry leads the entire Democratic left and the bulk of the mainstream media (MSM) in chorus after mendacious chorus of half-truths, spin and outrageous whoppers. We would be ticked off enough but the fact that an important fraction of the public seems unconcerned makes it even more galling. Two excerpts:

"If Bill Clinton or Al Gore had conducted this war, you would be weeping joyously about Iraqi children going to school and women registering to vote. If this war had been successful rather than hard, John Kerry would be boasting today about how he supported it — much as he did every time it looked like the polls were moving in that direction."

"I don't care if you hate George W. Bush; it's not like I love the guy. And I don't care if you opposed the war from day one. What disgusts me are those people who say toppling Saddam and fighting the terror war on their turf rather than ours is a mistake, not because these are bad ideas, but merely because your vanity cannot tolerate the notion that George W. Bush is right or that George W. Bush's rightness might cost John Kerry the election."

I couldn't have said it better which is why Jonah makes the big bucks and I don't. Even big bucks don't cut it when mendacity is threatening to ruin your life and the lives of your countrymen. Just ask Jonah. Or Brick.