I wish I could articulate my thoughts as coherently and as articulately as those in this post from Down With Tyranny!:

There comes a time when we have to listen to the voices trying to reach through the media buzz of Fox news and the right wing talk radio of Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy. We need to turn down the volume on the Laura Ingrahams and the Ann Coulters of the fringe right. There comes a time when sober citizens must hear the voices of their military leaders who are speaking, by necessity, in hushed tones, and those who can speak out strongly as Jack Murtha has done in the House and on the MSM.

Jack Murtha has not been shy about telling Americans that he is speaking for the military because the military cannot legally speak up for themselves. In the book Fiasco, author Tom Ricks helps military leaders tell the truth to the American people. (Richard Clarke tells the truth to the American People, Ron Suskind tells the truth to the American people… you get the picture, time to listen.)

On Wednesday, in a news conference, Tony Snow tells us that a vote for Lamont is a vote for another 9/11. On Fox news there is a Col. Hunt who says we line up Iranians and Syrians and kill them. These statements are inflammatory. They are not responsible statements. There is no statesmanship in those statements. There is certainly no wisdom in them. Statements like these are designed to play to the reactionaries among us.

At this juncture, Mr. Bush enjoys, at best, little over 30% in approval ratings, and nothing gives him a lasting bounce. His Secretary of State is under attack from the right wing for being too concerned about peace, too hesitant to let the battle in the Middle East rage. His Secretary of Defense cannot muster a coherent statement on his continued failures. His Attorney General is speechless as he tries so hard to get the Senate to give him their permission to let this Regime torture. It seems personal.

It’s probably “bad form” to quote so much of that, but it’s a worthy read.