Now that the feel-good July 4 weekend is over, the stretch from now until Labor Day will be a rough one. It's really a sad thought, that this country of ours has lost its way due to the globalists in the White House. And what's sadder still is that we, as a country, don't want to talk about it - but it's big conversation everywhere else in the world.
The smoke had cleared from the last burst of fireworks, the barbecue was turned off and the final strains of "God Bless America" had drifted into the night.But somehow, the annual outpouring of jingoism sounded hollow this year, with far more doubts on the horizon this July 4 than anyone would have foreseen a few short months ago.
Euphoria over the show of military might is evaporating and the sense of self-esteem that comes with doing the right thing is being openly questioned.
Americans are heading into the summer's heat facing some new realities.
Their troops in Iraq are facing increasingly brazen and deadly attacks and don't know when they can go home.
Since George W. Bush congratulated troops on their job well done in his infamous photo op aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier on May 1, American soldiers are facing an average of 13 ambushes and attacks per day. Seventy have died, 27 from enemy fire.
The long Independence Day weekend opened here with television images of jubilant Iraqis jumping on the roof of a burned-out U.S. Humvee and a threatening audiotape from Saddam Hussein. That wasn't supposed to be happening.
The Taliban is regrouping in Afghanistan. No one here talks much about Afghanistan any more, but the job is not finished....
Also missing in action on this holiday weekend: 236,000 jobs that have disappeared this year, 30,000 last month alone, bringing U.S. unemployment to its highest rate in nine years, higher even than in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.
They have vanished, along with 15 points on Bush's approval rating in the past 12 months.
Troubles? As Bush is wont to say: "Bring 'em on."
Bush travelled to Dayton, Ohio, Friday to pay tribute to the U.S. military and assure Americans they are the guardians of freedom in the world and, without their might, "the ambitions of tyrants would go unopposed."
But, he said, the nation faces challenges and remains at war.
"The enemies of America plot against us and many of our fellow citizens are still serving and sacrificing in distant places.
"Many military families are separated. Our people in uniform do not have easy duty and much depends on their success."
Without them, he said, millions would live at the mercy of terrorists.
"With America's active involvement in the world, tyrants learn fear and terrorists are on the run."
As he spoke, U.S. troops faced renewed attacks in Iraq....
As Iraq slides out of its control, the Bush administration is paying the price for pursuing unilateralism — now going cap in hand to other countries, pleading for international help for its dispirited and beleaguered troops in the country.
"Begging Poland and Ukraine and Nicaragua and Honduras to help us is rather humiliating and degrading when we are supposed to be the great power," says Clyde Prestowitz, founder of the Economic Strategic Institute and author of American Unilateralism And The Failure Of Good Intentions.
Speaking from Europe, Prestowitz saystraditional allies, whom Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls the "new Europe," want no part of the chaos in Iraq and don't want to fight under American command.
"We are now paying the price of our own cynicism and the perception in Europe of an America betraying its own ideals. It may be a silent price at home, but I hear it everywhere (in Europe.)"
About 100,000 years ago, in the pre-Bush era, I would always attach a flag to the antenna of my car during any holiday (much to my Malaysian-born wife's amusement). But over a year ago I stopped showing the colors. I've resolved never to display the flag until Knucklehead is out of the White House.
