Five hundred days remaining

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt.... If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake."

-- Thomas Jefferson


Saturday, 08 September 2007, is noteworthy. We are only 500 days from Tuesday, 20 January 2009, the day that a new president of the United States of America will be sworn in.

If the American people choose wisely, and if our votes are counted properly, it is only 500 days until:

♦ honor is restored to our White House;

♦ the rule of law is again enforced by our Justice Department;

♦ those who say "I swear to uphold the Constitution" are no longer committing perjury;

♦ the Geneva Conventions are again revered as solemn cornerstones of a civilized society, and as bulwarks against barbarism from within;

♦ chronic, relentless, heinous dereliction of duty in the Oval Office stops immediately;

♦ pursuit of the murderer of three thousand Americans begins in earnest;

♦ the remainder of our weary men and women in uniform come home to the heroes' welcome they deserve;

♦ criminal spying on U.S. citizens on American soil stops;

♦ the lost city of New Orleans begins its resurrection from the dead in earnest;

♦ voodoo is banished from the Surgeon General's office, from the National Institutes of Health, and from the Centers for Disease Control;

♦ polar bears take a step back from extinction;

♦ the wealthy get no more tax cuts in time of war;

♦ a vice president is sworn in who does not go to Capitol Hill to argue in favor of torture, who does not go drinking and shooting, who does not use the vilest of language on the floor of the United States Senate, who does not hide from subpoenas and reporters, who has not been arrested more times than all other vice presidents in American history combined, who is not, in short, an international disgrace and an historic embarrassment;

♦ a president is sworn in who does not hide among schoolchildren in Florida while Americans are choosing between death by fire and death by gravity, who does not hide in Louisiana while Americans are fighting hijackers to the death over Pennsylvania, who does not hide in Nebraska while Americans are wondering where the hell their president is and why he will not lead, who does not use the solemn and historic State of the Union address to Congress to lie our nation into a war against a country that did not attack us and which was no threat to us, who does not invite terrorists to kill American soldiers by taunting them to "Bring it on", who does not strut around in a borrowed flight suit, who does not send our men and women in uniform to fight and die without body armor and without vehicular armor, who does not allow his subordinates to disclose the identity of one of our top intelligence agents to our enemies as political retribution against that agent's spouse, who does not allow two of the most unstable totalitarian regimes in the world to go nuclear on his watch, who has not been arrested more times than all other presidents in American history combined, who is not, in short, an international disgrace and an historic embarrassment;

♦ a president and vice president are sworn in who will appeal to our better natures, who will work to lift up the least among us, who will spend the next four to eight years restoring our nation's credibility, who have learned the lessons of history and who will not repeat it, and who will, as Lincoln said, "bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

If the American people choose wisely and if our votes are counted properly, it is only 500 days until we get our country back.