bob says...

Bob asks, "When are we going to stop behaving so stupidly?"

For a nation that can’t stop bragging about how great and powerful it is, we’ve become shockingly helpless in the face of the many challenges confronting us. Our can-do spirit was put on hold many moons ago, and here we are now unable to defeat the Taliban, or rein in the likes of BP and the biggest banks, or stop the oil gushing furiously from the bowels of earth like a warning from Hades about the hubris and ignorance that is threatening to destroy us.

Jawohl. I've been asking for some time now when exactly it was that we became the can't-do capital of the universe. When I was a kid I thought this country could do anything -- fly higher than the strongest eagle, send gizmos up into space, and illuminate the universe with her endless electricity and energy. That's what the grown-ups told me. In those days everybody referred to that "Can-Do American Spirit."

So yeah, why can't we plug a leak and stop prosecuting an endless, pointless, and frequently criminal war? Is that so hard?