If you’re not aware yet, the NY Times has finally dropped their silly “Select” program when they discovered that not too many people were willing to pay for the privilege of reading their paper online. The result is that Maureen Dowd is once again available to read. This is great as I love Maureen. Well, her writing… anything else would just be creepy. Whenever I’ve seen her in person she’s like fingernails on a blackboard. She has the personality for print media. But I digress.

This week she wonders if Cheney will manage to lead/drive us into attacking Iran before the end of the Bush reign of terror. I share her concern. There’s a lot of writing on the wall. Exaggerated claims about how Iran will precipitate World War III, citing them as the new greatest threat and sponsors of terror, etc. Not to mention that attacking Iran would certainly be the Republicans best political shot in 2008. The American public has repeatedly demonstrated they can be whooped into a patriotic frenzy when there’s butt-kickin’ to do. And we all know how soft the Democrats are on war and the military. Imagine how bad it would have been if WWII, Korea, or Viet Nam had happened on Democratic watches… ummm… wait a minute… But I digress.

But there’s a part of me that thinks we can’t possibly get fooled again. Can we? Bush’s approval rating is dismal, in large part fueled by the Iraq debacle. The majority of Americans now believe we were misled into that war. Would they buy it again? I’m inclined to think they wouldn’t. But I’m also scared their opinion wouldn’t matter. Congress has proved disappointingly impotent, and Bush & Co. seem to be more and more determined to do what they believe is right and dare Congress to do something about it. It’s very conceivable that an Iranian attack could be launched without any sort of national debate. Which begs the question, if that happened, would we as a people take action, or just blog about it? I suspect we would just suck up yet another quagmire of a war. The alternative would be to stage a revolution of sorts and take back our government. But doing so with a fresh war front opened would divide the country even further, possibly spawning our own civil war. But I doubt it would be a war of guns. We lack the commitment to action and, frankly, the stomach for that. Rather it would be a war of words and rhetoric. AM Radio vs. the Blogosphere. Oh wait, that war is already going on. But I digress.