Wednesday night, President Bush went on the air and told the American people that he is going to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq (Chicago Tribune, 1/10/07).  That’s odd. I thought he was listening.

After the bleak report from the Iraq Study Group, President Bush went into “listening mode” (CNN, 12/11/06). He told the U.S. troops that he was “meeting with the Pentagon…the State Department…outside officials, [the] National Security team and…Iraqi leaders” and that he was “listening to a lot of advice to develop a strategy” that would help our troops succeed in Iraq (whitehouse.gov press release, 12/13/06). Hmm…Aren’t these groups some of the same folks who gave us the crummy intelligence that linked Iraq to al-Qaeda and insisted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? One would think the president might turn elsewhere for good advice on how to improve the situation in Iraq.

Perhaps the Iraq Study Group? After all, the Republican Congress appointed this commission. It was led by the president’s father’s good buddy, James Baker, a politician with a long and impressive conservative resume. It included some Democrats, yes, but it was also comprised of many well-respected people from the president’s own party, including Sandra Day O’Connor and Ed Meese. The commission spent “a lot of time,” money and energy coming up with a thorough report to help guide Congress and the president in “The Way Forward” (whitehouse.gov press release, 12/6/06). The president thanked the commission for their work, but did he ever actually read the report? Evidently not.

Perhaps he was listening to his generals? After all, they have the combat experience on the ground in Iraq. President Bush told the Washington Post that he believed it was “important to trust the judgment of the military when they’re making military plans (12/06). Yet Pentagon insiders say that the Joint Chiefs have long been opposed to increasing troop levels, and General John Abizaid, the outgoing head of Central Command, said just a couple months ago that increasing the number of troops in Iraq was not the right strategy (msnbc.com, 1/10/07).

Perhaps he was listening to Congress? After all, until last week, the Republicans still held the majority. It seems, however, that President Bush was not interested in what American Senators and Representatives were saying, not even those who are in his own party. Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) believes that an increase in troop levels merely “perpetuates the status quo” (Fox News, 1/11/07). Even the House Republicans’ leader, Rep. John Boehner (R- OH) cannot endorse the president’s decision, saying that the plan needs to be examined first (dailynewsonline, 1/11/07).

Perhaps he was finally listening to the American people? Was he listening to his citizens when he decided to send thousands more of their sons and daughters into a violent quagmire? Well, let’s see. We were so displeased with the way things were going in Iraq that we completely overturned his party’s control of Congress and tossed out as many local Republicans as we could.  In an AP-Ipsos survey taken before the president’s speech on Wednesday, 70% of Americans opposed sending more troops to Iraq (AP, 1/11/07).

Already, protests are being staged and planned. On January 27^th, United for Peace is staging a protest in Washington D.C. (www.unitedforpeace.org), and Christians are planning a rally on March 16^th, the fourth anniversary of the invasion (www.christianpeacewitness.org). The American people sent a loud message at the polls in November. The American people are screaming at him from outside the White House windows. If the president were listening at all, he’d have no trouble hearing us.

Once again, President Bush has said one thing and done another. Once again, he seems to be operating in a bubble. Once again, he is doing precisely what he wants even when it is completely at odds with the will of the American people. So who was the president listening to when he was in “listening mode?” Evidently, just the voices in his head. Again.

I have found a benefit to all the nuttiness of the holidays! It does not apply to everyone, but I thought I’d share for the folks who could take heart from my discovery.

For my family, this weekend was wildly busy. We had company Friday night, two dinners to attend Saturday (my husband went to one while I went to the other), and a birthday party Sunday. I also had to teach my final class of the fall semester on Saturday morning.

We were so busy, in fact, that until this morning, I had no time to wallow in sports misery.

And I had an awful sports weekend. Wanna see?

1. Indiana University (my undergrad alma mater) lost to Kentucky. Close game, though.
2. Butler University (my Master’s Degree) lost to Indiana State. Another close one, but I was so disappointed. Not only had Butler been having a stellar season up to this point, most of my family and friends are ISU alumni, so I’ll have to hear it all through the holidays.
3. Indiana Pacers got TROUNCED by Cleveland. And that idiot Stephen Jackson added to his already glowing reputation by getting kicked off the bench by the saintly patient Rick Carlisle. Jackson has GOT TO GO! He and Artest have ruined our team.
4. Indianapolis Colts, well, that was just embarrassing.

My only consolations were that my New York Giants won and New England was embarrassed by Miami almost as badly as Indy was by Jacksonville.

But the great thing was that I saw only snippets of all my sports tragedies. I caught a couple minutes of the IU/Kentucky game through the window of a sports bar as I was heading back to work after lunch. I saw only the final scores of the Butler/ISU game and the Pacers debacle. And I was chasing my kids around a birthday party on Sunday, so I just saw a few plays of that Colts /Jags nonsense.

So today, I sat down at the PC to check out the headlines, and in looking at the scoreboard, I realized what a cumulative disaster I had, happily, missed because I’d been too busy to watch much of it.

For once, I can honestly say, thank heavens for Christmas stress!

I haven’t written any posts for a while. Two reasons: one, I was recovering from the election madness, and two, my husband and I were in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a wedding. I’ve been to several foreign countries, but for both my husband and me this was the first time south of the border. To be honest, Mexico was never on our “must-see” list. Now, however, it is definitely on our “must-return” list! This trip was amazing, and it was not at all what I’d expected. I learned so much, and we had a fantastic time. The biggest surprise, though, was not what we learned about Mexico, but what we learned about the U.S. and ourselves. Suddenly, I have a very different perspective on my homeland.

Language:

Spanish is the most user-friendly of any language I’ve studied (English, French, Russian, Italian, Japanese). That’s probably because the people who speak it are so friendly and are just so delighted when foreigners try to pick it up that they give you as much encouragement as they can.

One of the most often-repeated phrases I heard from my fellow American tourists was, “Isn’t it great that so many Mexicans speak English? I haven’t had any trouble getting around at all even though I don’t speak Spanish.” I wonder how many people who visit the U.S. go home saying, “Isn’t it great that so many Americans speak Spanish/French/Chinese?” Hah! I highly doubt that any foreign tourist to the States as ever said anything like that.

If knowledge is power, then just about every foreign country I’ve ever visited has power over the U.S. because so many more of their citizens are multi-lingual. We should definitely NOT make English the official language of the U.S. because it will just give Americans another excuse not to learn a foreign language and put us even further behind the rest of the world educationally.

Environment:

We were in the jungle, and my tree-hugging heart was relieved to see that the jungle is still a formidable force. The people of Puerto Vallarta are fighting a constant battle with the rain forest and the ocean just to keep their buildings standing. As much fun as we had in the developed areas of Puerto Vallarta, we also enjoyed the many places where the jungle and the ocean are definitely winning the battle!

Food:

I thought I hated guacamole. I just hated the stuff that passes for guacamole here. Fresh guac is awesome!

Taco Bell, Don Pablo’s and the other “Mexican” chains are a joke. Real Mexican food is fantastic.

Money:

Money cannot buy happiness. We saw so many poor people in Mexico living in “structures” that make our American homeless shelters look plush. And yet they have a joie de vivre that is infectious. They are friendly and polite and know how to have a good time in spite of what they don’t have. When we got on our plane home and heard our fellow Americans griping to the flight attendants about EVERYTHING, it really struck me how spoiled rotten we are. We have so much, and all we do is whine. Poor people in Mexico were smiling and laughing on the front steps of hovels that looked as though they might fall down at any minute; Americans live in luxury and spend most of our time trying to figure out how to keep everyone else from having more fun than we are.

Activity:

For five days, we were outside constantly – swimming in the pool, snorkeling in the ocean, zip-lining in the canopy, parasailing on the beach, hiking through the rain forest. I cannot do a single one of those things in Indiana. No wonder we’re all overweight.

Mexican men can dance! “Cool” American men won’t even try, but the truly sexy ones try even if they don’t do it very well.

Conclusion:

Americans are very lucky. Most of us didn’t really do anything to live in the nice conditions we inhabit; we were just fortunate to be born in this country. Instead of enjoying our good fortune, however, we just complain about all the things we don’t have and try to keep everyone else from taking what we do have. One of the waiters at our hotel was a super-nice Mexican man who was married to an American woman in California. Because of “paperwork problems,” he was deported last year as part of the INS crackdown. How unfortunate and stupid. Here is a hardworking, polite man married to an American citizen who cannot live with his wife because of a bunch of arbitrary, paranoid, xenophobic rules. I know a whole bunch of lazy, drunk Americans who get to stay in their comfy conditions just because they were born north of some subjective line in the sand drawn a couple hundred years ago. I’d take our waiter over the whole lot of them any day.

Anyway, we had a great time. I highly recommend Puerto Vallarta to anyone. Still, I’m glad to be home. I just hope we won’t forget what we saw. It’s so easy to take American life for granted, but we are truly privileged. Sometimes you need to see things from the other side to recognize just how lucky we are.

It has been a wild 48 hours, and my brain’s just buzzing. Here’s what I’m thinkin’ tonight:

I’m so glad this country sent such a decisive message to our government. It makes me proud to be American again. Not because the Democrats won, but because the system still works. If the leaders in Washington DC let us down, we knock ‘em out. Amen.

Jon Stewart is so sexy.

I don’t care if he is on my side; Chris Matthews is a jerk. I could not have been happier that Rick Santorum lost his Senate seat; however, Matthews’ snide remarks about Santorum’s little girl crying onstage were really unnecessary. A seven- or eight-year-old does not have the emotional maturity to “grin and bear it,” nor does she understand much worse things could happen to her like losing her father to war or gang violence or terrorism. Even the best-behaved children cry over much sillier things; she was, quite naturally, sad that her father had lost his job. Sure, they won’t go hungry, but she realizes that this was a big disappointment. What was he supposed to do? Tell her to stop being a big baby or just kick her off the stage? We won the election, but let’s be gracious winners and at the very least, allow the children of the losers their tears.

Bye-bye, Donald Rumsfeld. Wait! Is that the “Hallelujah Chorus” I hear?

A female speaker of the House! Doesn’t that make her third in line to the Presidency? Does the President have any plans to go hunting with Dick Cheney?

I wonder how many times Ann Coulter voted this year?

I wonder what really won the Missouri Senate seat for Claire McCaskill - Michael J. Fox’s support for her or Rush Limbaugh’s spectacularly insensitive impersonation of Fox?

After watching President Bush’s press conference this morning, I actually liked him better than I have in six years. A little humility makes him much easier to take.

Okay, the conservatives are out. Can liberals do any better? Is it even possible for them to do worse?

Thank God the elections are over!

The holidays are coming! Argh.

Poor Kevin Federline.

For six years, millions of right-wing conservatives have been vilifying gays. “Homosexuality is a sin!” they cry. “God hates fags!” their banners scream. “Ban gay marriage!” they insist.

Millions of people shouting for years.

And in one day, one gay man has made a statement louder than all of them.

Mike Jones, a homosexual from Denver, revealed that Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and advisor to President Bush and Karl Rove, paid him for sex and methamphetamine. According to Jones, he decided to tell his story because he was upset that Haggard and his New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage. “It made me angry that here’s someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex,” he said (thestarpress.com, 11/3/06).

At first Haggard denied Jones’ claim completely. A day later, after learning exactly what proof Jones had to support the claim, Haggard amended his denial to admit only those parts Jones could prove. So at the very least, Haggard’s a liar. He claims now that he did purchase illegal drugs, but he didn’t take them. Still a felony, right?

As a liberal Christian, I am pleased that Mr. Haggard’s followers are finally being forced to face their own unwarranted (and un-Christian!) hatred of gays. Most of these conservative evangelicals have never met a real, live homosexual. It is much easier to detest a group in which you have no personal investment. Now, however, they have their very own experience with homosexuality - a man they have trusted and liked and believed in turns out to be gay. If Haggard finally comes clean and his followers get over their denial, perhaps they’ll learn something: gay people are not the bogeymen that right-wingers have painted them as for the past few years. Most of them are nice people who love God and their families and friends just like most heterosexuals.

As a former “paid escort” and methamphetamine dealer, Mike Jones is not the best representative of the gay community. But his single statement has shaken an entire population. And I think the most ironic thing is that that population gave him the power to do it by maligning homosexuals for so long. They turned gays into monsters. They empowered him by demonizing him. Face it. If Haggard had been a Unitarian Universalist, Jones’ news wouldn’t have created a ripple.

So here we are four days before elections, and things just keep getting weirder for conservatives. Foley and Haggard are gay; Limbaugh is an insensitive jerk; Coulter, DeLay and others are facing criminal charges. The hypocrisy is staggering. If things don’t change on Tuesday, one of two things will have happened. Either Karl Rove and his cronies will have successfully rigged the election (again) OR Americans will have gone completely insane. And either way, I’ll be moving to Canada.