In the movie, “V for Vendetta” there is a memorable line where the lead character, V, calls out the people to wake up from their slumber, beginning with an acknowledgment. “I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be?”
Emanating like a Koan, in the New York Times Op-Ed Piece, “The Coup at Home,” Frank Rich asserts that a quiet coup has taken place in America.
“What was once shocking and unacceptable in America has now been internalized as the new normal,” Rich states. We’re not idiots, he adds, stating, “Americans know that the ideals that once set our nation apart from the world have been vandalized...”
As the canvas for drawing out his perspective, he makes ugly comparisons to the putsch that Musharraf just brought about in Pakistan:
"In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we’ve propped up in places like Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We’ve become inured to democracy-lite.
Even if Mr. Bush had the guts to condemn General Musharraf, there is no longer any moral high ground left for him to stand on. Quite the contrary. Rather than set a democratic example, our president has instead served as a model of unconstitutional behavior, eagerly emulated by his Pakistani acolyte."
I am a big believer in personal responsibility, intellectual honesty and intellectual curiosity, too. On some level, we get the government we deserve, a point worth considering in reading Rich’s powerful close:
"To believe that this corruption will simply evaporate when the Bush presidency is done is to underestimate the permanent erosion inflicted over the past six years."
Or, put less eloquently, "shit sticks."
