My Country, 'Tis for Sale

    So I went yesterday to the Players, the wonderful club started by Edwin Booth, loved by Mark Twain, and all manner of Greaties of the Past, that has fallen onto hard times along with everyplace else that is not funded by the Koch brothers, to hear Colin Powell, as I guess I am allowed to refer to him, as he has long since retired from being a General.  My beloved friend Sandy Burton,sharp, keen, impeccable journalist, and first woman Bureau Chief at Time, would have taken the offered post as Washington Bureau chief had he run for president, as many hoped he would do.

    He was there yesterday to flog his new book, and was gently witty as he told us what a leader had to be, the most important thing being "kind."  He told one anecdote that was scored with audience(a huge one, the place was overfull) laughter, involving George W. Bush, whom he said he had briefed on everything necessary to know before the meeting, because "I'm no fool."  Everybody chortled, as we all know who was.

    Anyway, he was quietly riveting, and did explain why he didn't run for president-- he didn't have the passion for it, he said.  We know who does have the passion for it, though he clearly has no passion for anything else, being one of the most bloodless and uninspired human beings(I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, ascribing humanity to him) I have ever seen, and that is Mitt.  Never have I seen anyone more patently empty, feigning having something inside.  It is all so sad, this election.

    I would have liked to have asked the General how we end these wars, but of course that wasn't his job.  His job was the best way to keep them going, and of course trying to win.

    As for this election, I have just submitted this editorial to the NYTimes, among the  last bastions of Liberty.  Last night made me sick.  "Sinister" is originally a word that meant, in other languages, ' left.'  But here it is 'right'.  Mitt Romney is sinister.  Feigning every emotion including emotion, he scared me.  Where will we go if he wins?

    God Bless America, or, in this case, God help America.

    Here's the piece.    

    The saddest thing about this election, for those of us who grew up with a genuine love of country, is the loss of what made us America.  That was, from my vivid recollection, a deep admiration for the Framers,-- men like Jefferson, Franklin and Washington, who overcame impossible odds and chilling hardships to put us, literally, on the map.  That was the country I was born in, undeniably the greatest country in the world, where, because of the education that was available, and the prevalence of American initiative, once known as "gumption," everyone had a chance, with hard work, to be whatever they wanted to be.

    All of this seems to have gone out the window with the partisan divisions that threaten to tear us apart.  Even worse, the deep pockets of the SuperPacs, which could build shelters for the homeless, feed the hungry, and solve myriad problems here and around the world, are being plumbed solely to to buy this election.
  Sadly, we are not as smart as our history should have educated us to be.  That it will end up being how much money is spent to fool the largest number of the mindless, riveted to their TVs, that will could determine our future, is the new American Tragedy.