Politics: Come On. Seriously. Get. Out.

Some dumbass nominated Bush and Blair for the Nobel Prize for Peace this week. This is, of course, after Bush and other members of the White House criticized the Nobel committee and its recipient last year Jimmy Carter, for using the Prize to speak out on political matters, like, say, starting a war "preemptively" and triggering the death of a whole bunch of people in the process.

But this is of a piece, you see, with the transformation that this war and its trappings have brought. It frightens me because I'm bringing a kid into this world (and my wife would point out that he's comin' whether I'm comfortable with it or not), and this is a world where the old rules are gone. The bully wins, and he doesn't wait until school's out to beat your ass.

And as a result, the American people aren't as worried about the evil we live within. There was something profound about the period between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. We left that war, despite its somewhat dubious outcome, with a profound sense of what was wrong, and what was right. The pendulum marked its furthest point, and we were the white-hat wearing country fighting for truth and justice.

We knew that fighting a clear, threatening and shocking evil was right. The evil we fought was one that demonstrated a supreme disdain for life, plain and simple. The appetite was voracious, but more importantly, the ability to satisfy that appetite was very well developed. We came out of that conflict with a clear sense that when right was challenged, we arrived at her side in defense.

But then came all those things that seemed different. We were fighting for the side of right in Korea, but against a proxy villain. Then in Vietnam, we were weighing different challenges against one another, and the relative costs of getting involved were seemingly miscalculated, until it was too late to revise the calculations. The pendulum swung back.

At that point, we realized that there was watching to be done. Our own people were never going to have their words taken without salt, as it were. They had lied to us once, and that should have been the only chance they got. The left used its own nuclear option, spending the eighties fighting the surging American arsenal, and losing a bunch of battles while eventually winning the war.

And then we stopped watching. Maybe it was the damn peace and prosperity. But most of the nineties were difficult for left interest groups because the impression was created that, with a Democrat in the White House, well, we don't have to worry about anything. Enviros couldn't raise money, even though Clinton's EPA didn't do much better than Christine Whitman's is. God knows the nuclear watchdogs all took it in the teeth, even though Clinton poured dollars into defense.

But in any case, we just stopped paying attention. Those interest groups got smaller and smaller, despite the money flowing through the economy and funders at such a clip. Then, when Bush came in, the groups were fewer and more spare, and the money disappeared with Bush's recession.

But they're needed more than ever. Because we're going to give a big old thumbs up to nuclear weapons again because who wants to watch the government closely? Why bother? They've always acted in our best interests, right? And we're gonna have to ramp up our poisoning of millions of Americans with toxic chemicals from our pals at the former Chemical Manufacturers Association (now the much more banal-sounding American Chemistry Council).

We're going to let them go ahead and lie like dogs about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then we're going to sit by while Rumsfeld and Cheney install an even better friend of Wolfowitz and Chalabi as the new Viceroy of Iraq:

What special expertise about Iraq or the Middle East is Bremer bringing to Iraq? None, says a former senior State Department official who has worked with Bremer. He is a "voracious opportunist with voracious ambitions," the official told Newsday. "What he knows about Iraq could not quite fill a thimble. What he knows about any part of the world would not fill a thimble. But what he knows about Washington infighting could fill three or four bushel baskets."

Sure. Nominate them for a Nobel Prize. If they don't win, maybe we'll invade Sweden and take it by force.