Lifting the Fog of Fear

Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night was a repeat of some of his "Special Comments" from the past year. They all seemed very powerful to me at the time he made them and, while I enjoyed them last night, I realized that such commentary does not make for entertainment. Olbermann speaks well and his phrasing is elegant, but the commentary simply had no impact out of the context of the time to which it spoke.

I did respond when he referred to the "Fog of Fear" that Bush and company had cast over the country, because I realized how much that fog has lifted since the elections last November.

I am a news junky. Being retired, I am able to spend a couple hours or more daily online researching what is happening. I read the MSM and non-MSM of both left and right. When I heard that phrase last night I realized that the miasma of fear has essentially disappeared from all of it. There is still, of course, a great deal of discourse about Iraq, but it doesn’t seems to be clouded with the past’s inward focus on our "safeness" so much as a more outward focus on winning the "war on terror" in general.

I’d still rather read how we are spending billions on feeding hungry people or rebuilding New Orleans, but ridding the news of the endless "Only I can keep you safe" is a step in the right direction.

For five long years Bush and his minions have ridden their steeds through the streets of our nation screaming "The terrorists are coming," and now only Bush and McCain are left on spavined nags peeping like a couple of Chicken Littles.

Yes, "national security," the failure of the current administration to implement it and discussion of what to do about it, is still a major issue, but it seems to be getting a more reasonable approach today. We do after all, need to provide for our own defense but we do not need to make that the centerpiece, indeed the totality, of our lives.

The tragedy of 9/11 is behind us. Nothing will bring those lost lives back. Death and destruction in Afghanistan and Iraq will not bring back to life those who died that day. American soldiers sacrificed on the altar of war will not replace that hole in the New York skyline.

We can, however, honor those fallen by crawling out of the foxholes that false leaders have had us cowering within, as a nation casting off the fog of fear and once more living our lives standing free and proud. Now that we are doing so those lost in the Towers and our soldiers who have died and are dying in distant lands can rest at peace, knowing they have not died in vain.

One task is left – restore our Constitution.