Malaise

I've been a bit weary lately. I find the news depressing, not because it's so depressing (bad things always happen and they always find their way into the press) but because of the media's relentless hostility to the Government. I mean, to read the newspaper, everything from dog poop on the front lawn, to ingrown toenails, to weather phenomena, to car accidents is George Bush's fault. It's as if reasoned discourse and criticism have ended, and insanity has filled in the blanks. Fighting this, as I noted in my earlier post about the lack of outrage over the Palestinian's upcoming desecration of a synogogue by turning it into a museum celebrating Jewish murders, seems like sweeping at the tide with a mop, which is ultimately a frustrating and fruitless task. And today in The Anchoress, I read that I'm not the only one feeling this kind of fatigue. The Anchoress is feeling it herself, as are Jonah Goldberg and LaShawn Barber. Politics lately is so ugly, and so reflexive, and so devisive, it just seems pointless to keep trying to counter this environment with facts and reasoned argument. The Anchoress, though, is not giving up, remembering that George Bush is actually doing quite a decent job. I'm not giving up either. Because if we give up, those on the Left really have won -- they've won simply by exhausting our weapons of intelligence, reason, clear-sightedness and compassion, and that's a victory as surely as if this were a war with guns and they fought us to the point where we lost all bullets and missiles. The fact is, the blogosphere really is a very effective counterweight to the seemingly inexorable MSM. Without us gathering tidbits of news, analyzing available information that hasn't been filtered through the MSM, pooling information, and generally talking about stuff, the only one left out there fighting is Rush Limbaugh, and even he can't do it all by himself. Keep in mind, it was the blogosphere that destroyed the attack on George Bush's military service and it was the blogosphere that refused to let the MSM bury questions about John Kerry's military service. If we get tired, the war is over and we've lost. So here's a message to all the weary ones, the ones who open the newspaper or turn on the TV and think, "Oh, no. Not another attack on a George Bush portrayed simultaneously as the village idiot and the evil genius. Oh, no. Not another relentlessly grim report about Iraq, without any stories about the good things that are happening. Oh, no. Not another hagiographic story about some Palestinian villager, with a counter story about some crazed Jewish extremist." Well, I say to you, hang in there, since you are the ultimate WMD against these "oh no" stories.