“What’s goin’ on?!”

The “liberal” media has done a terrific job of scaring me with a combination of color-coded terrorist warnings and images of death and destruction in Iraq. Their 100 percent objective, 100 percent support of the war coverage has kept me totally preoccupied. I will now take a look at what I’ve been ignoring.

The first thing is that since George W. was elected not a single good thing has happened for this country.

Bush lost the majority vote but with a little help from the Electoral College, his daddy, his daddy’s appointed Supreme Court justice, his brother the governor, and his cousin at Fox News, he managed to steal the election. Democracy? Out.

The Homeland Security and Patriot Acts have given intelligence agencies the power to suspend the Bill of Rights, and permission to act in any manner they see fit without public accountability. Freedom? Out.

So what’s in since Bush’s election? War and depression.

Other measures of administrative success are better described in terms of up and down.

What’s up? Government hypocrisy, oil prices, unemployment, poverty, taxes on the poor, the national deficit, protests, international instability, the number of United Kingdom military police rebelling against Tony Blair, corporate scandal, terrorism, countries with chemical and biological weapons (13), countries with ties to terrorism (16), standardized testing, people dying from a new extreme strain of the common cold called SARS (500 cases and 22 deaths), ethnic diversity among United States ground troops in Iraq, and finally, people that don’t like the U.S.

The president of Somalia announced publicly that he prays nightly for Iraq to win the war. Russia, France and Germany have publicly denounced it. Even the Vatican has called out the president.

What’s down? Taxes for the rich, national security, the stock market, the economy, accessibility to higher education, funding and quality of public education at all levels, the income of middle class households, the United Nations, support for the war (people are just now realizing that war is about killing people), consumer confidence, funding for military veterans’ programs, the belief that there is a difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties (only 39 percent of the population voted in the last elections), the number of congressmen whose families will die in the war (of the 535 congressman only one has a child enlisted in the armed forces), and finally, U.S. citizens’ understanding of international policy (40 percent of Americans recently polled believe that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 World Trade Center attacks).

Michael Moore wrote in an open letter to President Bush, “The majority of Americans are not fooled by your weapons of mass destruction … Here’s what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs almost two dollars – the list goes on and on.”

But does it? Yes.

President Bush recently cut federal funding that allows poor children who can’t afford school lunch to receive it for free. That’s right, I said it – he took their lunch money! What’s worse is at the same time that Bush is taking lunch money from poor kids, he is requesting a $1.5 trillion tax cut that primarily benefits the rich.

North Korea broke off U.S. liaison talks a few days ago and pulled out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. North Korean officials claim that the U.S. is pushing the Korean peninsula to “the brink of war” and breaking its treaty obligations.

Pakistan and India are also developing nuclear missiles. Tariffs placed on steel by Bush have not only been deemed illegal, but some claim that they have cost 200,000 Americans their jobs in the past year.

Apparently, 200,000 is a special number, as it is also the number of U.S. military casualties deemed acceptable by the Pentagon for the war.

Dozens of women at the U.S. Air Force Academy are stepping forward to expose a culture in which nearly all women expect to be raped. What’s worse is they expect that if they come forward, they will be punished or expelled. Billions in cuts have been proposed for food stamps, child nutrition programs, and healthcare for the poor. And the icing on the cake – Saddam challenged Bush to a debate and Bush refused.

Due to this war I have also forgotten some things. For some time I had hoped to see teachers, firefighters and policemen paid a decent wage. They still don’t get paid jack. I had also hoped to see campaign finance reform and free public health care. No love there either.

There was also Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act that promised equal opportunity education for the poor. It is now coming in severely underfinanced.

I had also hoped that we could catch a six foot seven inch Saudi Arabian world famous multi-millionaire terrorist, who symbolically castrated the U.S. and killed thousands of innocent civilians. I haven’t heard his name in quite some time, though. Honestly, how hard could it be to spot a world famous, six-foot-seven-inch Saudi Arabian terrorist with a dirty beard and a turban in a crowd? I’m sure that we’ll remember, and find him right before the next election.

I was also under the impression that we were going to rebuild Afghanistan. I wonder what happened with that?

I also vaguely recall ties between the White House and Enron. However, I can’t seem to find the video of Bush Jr. and Bush Sr. yuckin’ it up with Enron’s executives anymore. That tape and any talk of its implications have simply disappeared.

I’m feeling unpatriotic. I will now ignore the attack on America’s elderly, poor, children and veterans. I will also ignore that this attack coincides with the very rich lining of their pockets. If you will excuse me, we just got moved up to Orange. I am going to sit on my couch like a boob, scared s___less, with a remote in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other.

Information from The New York Times and the BBC was used in this column.