The Anchoress

Siggy brings some expert shrink perspective to Mahmoud Ahmadenijad’s seemingly benevolent and diplomatically wise release of 15 British Marines, and he is worth reading and heeding:

We have reached a point where many would sooner believe absurd conspiracy theories or flights of fancy, rather than face the facts that would upend their perceptions of what reality must be, so as to validate their beliefs and biases.

Siggy is sounding a warning knell. You could also call it a wake-up call. It’s easier to throw our heads in the sand or bury ourselves (as even I have been doing, lately) in pop-culture and non-threatening, happily distracting entertainments, than to look up and really absorb the increasingly weird world around us. I almost liken our situation to Alice’s in Wonderland. We’ve spotted a bit of cake marked “EAT ME” and we’re happily munching it down thinking, like Alice, “Well, I’ll eat it…and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!”

It certainly seems like we are in danger of completely losing touch with our gut instincts, with our abilities to define what is authentic and what is illusory. And that’s true on every level. We’re lately unable to cleanly identify authenticity in the realm of politics, in education, medicine, economics, social mores, spirituality, the environment, community…it almost feels like the world is giving up and saying, “screw this, it’s all too complicated and treacherous out there. I’m watching Law and Order, and if the press wants me to believe that Nancy Pelosi freed these marines, then dammit, I’ll believe it! If Rosie wants me to believe that steel does not melt at temperatures above 2500 degrees (as I was taught many moons ago) then fine, I’ll believe it! Anything, I’ll believe anything, just stop browbeating me, please! I promise, I’ll stop thinking! What time is wrestling on?”

And while everyone is letting go, unmooring themselves from the things they have always known - either instinctively or factually - to be true, we’re adrift and floating on a rapid current into some very dangerous waters. I think that’s what Siggy is warning us about.

President Bush, whom I think I understand on one level, on another seems completely unable (or too hogtied) to turn his own ship around. That’s not helping.

Mike Wallace, who has made a point since early in President Bush’s first term to hammer him with negatives, gave Ahmadenijad a rather fond thumbs up not too long ago. Tyrants, for whatever reason, seem on an ascending curve, one that is redefining exactly who the good guys and bad guys are. Now, apparently, they are “good guys” are the too-long misunderstood tinpots and despots. The bad guys? Why, they’re the cowboys, of course.

On the face of things Tony Blair seemingly dithered his way through a crisis when he needed to be strong. His pal George W. Bush - seemingly tied up, gagged and thrown into a back-closet - couldn’t help him because even if he’d managed to untie himself, anything he did do, anything he said, would have been the wrong thing, the bad thing, the reason for all failure, and perhaps that’s made him a little gunshy.

Or maybe…just maybe…Putin had it right when he said Bush was going to attack Iran on Good Friday, and maybe that’s why Ahmadenijad let the hostages go.

If Bush and Blair did play the Cowboy Card, we’ll never know it, because they’ll never say. All we’ll get is media spin, bloggergrowls, and very few facts. Absent of facts…Wonderland can be anything we (you) want it to be.

Yes, it’s tiresome as hell. It makes you want to find a good book and fall into it - to plug up your ears with your ipod thingies and shut the world out.

But we can only do that for so long, you know, before the world will rip the book out of our hands, tear the thingies from our ears and make us pay attention. And when that happens, we, like Alice and Wonderland, may - sadly - simply mutter in our powerlessness, “Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual.”

I believe directly after that, she began to drown in her own tears.

Related:
Kim at Wizbang is watching Ahmadenijad with a jaundiced eye, as well.
Hot Air has the presser and many more links.
Michelle Malkin

Why are despots always so short?