I hate our political discourse.

[I feel like ranting about politics a bit, so rant I shall. Move on if you don't like it when I get in this mood.]

I don't read Glenn Greenwald all that much anymore these days, primarily because it gets so depressing. I'm glad he delves into the cesspools of what constitutes political discourse in this country, because hey, every dirty job's gotta get done by somebody, but still, eventually I just can't watch anymore. So I actually followed a link from Lance Mannion to one of Mr. Greenwald's posts, and sure enough, I wanted to vomit about halfway through it. I'm not sure if it was the quotes from actual transcriptions of "professional" journalists almost swooning over the manliness of Fred Thompson or the idea of Rush Limbaugh, he who cannot seem to make a marriage work at all, lecturing America on how they should be raising their children. (And then there's the appalling rejoinder to Greenwald spat out by Ace of Spades, who is apparently some sort of "humorist" on the Right.)

And this comes minutes after I read this article about Antonin Scalia's fetish for Jack Bauer, who is as completely fictional as any of Fred Thompson's "manly" movie or TV roles. Because, you know, look how many times Jack saved the world by doing questionable things. (Hey, Scalia, there are these people in TV called writers, and stuff happens on TV shows not because someone in the show does something, but because the writers wrote it that way. That second-season moment when Jack threatens to kill the terrorist guy's family on TV? The one that's faked? That tactic worked because the writers wrote it that way. So if you're wondering "What would Jack Bauer do?", the answer is simple: he'd do whatever the f***ing script tells him to do.)

And before that, I read Rudy Giuliani blathering on about how when he's President, we're going to "stay on offense" in the "War on Terror", as if the geopolitics of terrorism and fundamentalism can be reduced to the sides of a sporting event (and heaven forbid he actually spell out what "staying on offense" actually means, since I don't think anybody can seriously maintain that we've spent the last six years doing nothing but playing defense, and to less than encouraging results, either). And don't get me started on my confusion about just where Giuliani's national security gravitas came from, because I'm damned if I can figure that out.

And way back when we had the "Why didn't the men rush the guy! After all, I certainly would have!" crap over the Virginia Tech shooter. And so on, and so forth, ad infinitum.

I am so staggeringly tired of macho fantasy masquerading as serious political discussion these days.

OK, rant's done. Back to more mild-mannered stuff.