I feel like I'm caught in a timewarp...

I can't believe that it's been nearly two years since I blogged.  There have been so many times I've thought about it, but couldn't figure out where to start.  So, let's start right now...it's ten days until the 2012 election.  Let's recap, I don't know...the last 72 hours.

• Richard Mourdock, candidate for the US Senate from Indiana said that a pregnancy that results from rape is "something that God intends to happen."  Mitt Romney studiously avoids all questions from reporters asking him if he disavows Mourdock's remarks, and if he will ask Mourdock to take down the ad that Romney had done supporting Mourdock's candidacy (by the way, the only such ad that Romney has done).
• Following Colin Powell's (you remember him, right?  Four star general, commander of the US Army Forces, National Security advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State) endorsement of Barack Obama, John Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire (who resigned in disgrace as George H.W. Bush's chief of staff following revelations that he used government aircraft and vehicles to go golfing, go to a stamp collector's convention, where he bought $5000 worth of stamps, etc.) said, on CNN, as quoted in the New York Times, "When you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder whether that's an endorsement based on issues or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama," Mr. Sununu said. Mr. Morgan asked flatly, “What reason would that be?” Mr. Sununu responded, “Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you’re proud of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him.”
• Ann Coulter, that blight upon humanity, called the president a "retard," and then doubled down on her remarks after being called out by many, but most elegantly by John Franklin Stephens, a Special Olympics athlete, and a 30-year-old with Down's Syndrome.
• Donald Trump, the ultimate carnival barker, offered $5 million to the charity of the president's choice if he would release his school records, his passport applications, and something else...don't remember, doesn't fucking matter...

The fights continue (and the very idea that they are happening at all makes my head explode!) over who should makes the decisions about how a woman should behave, who should get to make her health decisions for her...it is, truly and sadly, the worst sort of clown show.  Chris Matthews finally became the first journalist to call it out for what it is:  "I don't like to [compare] anything to Sharia, but there's something about this theocratic notion that we're going to apply all our philosophical beliefs, our metaphysics, our religious training and turn it into law and turn it into criminalization." Terry O'Neil, the president of the National Organization for Women was a guest on his show, and put the sharp end on his point: "I think that it's kind of the creeping Talibanization of American policy." Speaking of Mitt Romney, she insisted that the Republican is in the "thick of this very fringe but very dangerous line of thought."

I'm reminded of the famous footage of the beginning of Joseph McCarthy's downfall, when Joseph Welch, who was the head counsel for the Army at the McCarthy hearings, had finally had enough: "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

We've had enough.  The lack of decency, the lack of decorum, civility, or even basic human respect...is appalling.  In our political discourse, we have shown ourselves to be the most vulgar and low of human beings, and in our human discourse, we are no better.  I hope and pray that we will go past this, and yet I fear that we have simply revealed ourselves over the last four years, and we truly have learned nothing about ourselves and those we share the planet with in the last fifty years.

Perhaps we're on the cusp of turning the corner...

• Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, said on Ed Schultz's show that "my party [the Republican party] is full of racists."
• This morning, on her show, Melissa Harris-Perry delivered a very powerful and forceful open letter to Richard Mourdock on the subject of abortion and women's rights.
• Last night, Bill Maher warned moderates that if they vote for Mitt, they'll be voting to bring the crazies back to Washington.