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Wading Through The Partisanship

I don't know about you, but I am sick of partisan politics. In recent months, I've been looking for a reason to be truly proud of our current government. Unfortunately, every time I get ready to say, "good job," the cries of dissent from dissenters overtake my brain and I find myself questioning even the things I know to be true. Last night's embrace of an Iraqi woman (whose father was killed by Saddam Hussein's murderous regime) and the mother of a fallen U.S. soldier (who died helping to free the people of Iraq) should reset everybody's cynicism buttons and cause us to think for a moment that, yes, there are some things worth fighting -- and, unfortunately, dying -- for. In our cynical and insulated U.S. bubble culture, we often lose touch with how the world really is. We overemotinally and irrationally overreact to the things that we should come to expect and grow callous to the things that we should applaud, and regardless of the content of Bush's speech last night -- which had severe ups and downs and was coolly calculated -- what that soldier (and all of our soldiers) sacrificed for that country should be applauded with introspective reverence. Was this a staged moment? A photo op? To some extent. Was the soldier's sacrifice? Certainly not.