I currently have the gross misfortune of being an American living and working in Europe during the era of George W. Bush’s presidency, which makes me the object of ridicule, scorn, and sometimes even hatred. I am burdened with the extreme displeasure of having to explain an embarrassment of distinctively American contributions to global society… The Iraq War, creationism, Christian fundamentalism, abstinence education, capital punishment, big oil, abortion rights, the denial of global warming, imperialism, U.S. Attorney scandals, Abu Ghraib, horrendous corruption, rendition and torture, stolen elections, ravenous capitalism, Guantanamo, militaristic sociopaths, racism, the lack of health care, etc. etc. etc…

I am the object of anthropological study and psychiatric examination… scrutinized, questioned and inevitably… ridiculed. Mine is an unenviable task… I get to make half-baked arguments, trying to convince everyone I meet that we are indeed not a band of pillaging, drooling, violent idiots… this despite the fact that every day I begrudgingly become more and more convinced that I indeed do come from a nation full of pillaging, drooling, violent idiots…

They come to me with furrowed brows, incredulous expressions, and inquisitive glances… they want so badly to understand… they want to know how and why we do what we do… they simply cannot comprehend how a nation that was once held in such high regard could now be in such disarray…

Oh sure, Europeans still enjoy our culture, our music and film… but the United States is no longer the holy grail… no longer the promised land… no longer where they dream of making it… They see the future and they are convinced it lies within them and Asia… Europeans are actively pursuing their own progressive agenda while widely dismissing the United States as irrelevant… as my cousin Patrick explained to me, “We look across the ocean to you and see what you are doing, and then we make sure that we do the opposite.”

Unlike most of my countrymen, Europeans actually engage in political discourse, they read newspapers, they are EDUCATED AND INFORMED. I find that I have no rational answers for them, no satisfactory explanations. All I can do any more is simply shrug my shoulders and apologize. I feel like an ass.

And just when I think things couldn’t get much worse, W delivers another grand “fuck you” moment for me to explain…

I wish I could say that I am stunned by W’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence… but after such a stupendously long string of gross injustices, idiotic decisions, grievous misappropriations and dirty deeds done dirt cheap, this is just one more for the woodpile…

You want rule of law? Fuck you pal… that is reserved for us serfs, knaves, and plebes… the great unwashed masses… we need not apply for the mulligan, the second shot, the grand pardon… that is reserved for white boardroom America, who get a free pass to ass-rape whomever, whenever, however, wherever…

Quite simply, crime does pay… Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise… Libby will write his memoirs, hit the banquet circuit, and live a life of luxury in the private sector. It has never been so profitable to be a Benedict Arnold…

Apparently, according to W’s sense of justice (or lack thereof), doing 30 months for treason is considered “excessive”… Meanwhile, a young black male in South Central will do 15 years of hard time for selling a fistful of crack in a community where that occupation is quite often the only career option available…

Might I point out that while W was the governor of Texas he executed people as if he was zapping flies at a Galveston barbeque… many of those he condemned to death were declared mentally retarded or were represented by attorneys who were asleep or too drunk to properly defend them… “tough shit” W declared, and to the fry cooker they went… however, he felt the need to let someone who lied to a Federal prosecutor while aiding in the cover-up of a treasonous crime walk without spending a day in jail. Ah yes, justice prevails once again…

I get it… I am no longer that idealistic or naïve… I know that party line politics, favoritism and nepotism run rampant in halls of government… but c’mon folks, this is beyond the pale… Libby destroyed the career of a dedicated civil servant and put the citizens of the United States at risk in doing so. In my opinion, that sort of crime garners a nice fat sentence of breaking big rocks into little rocks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Is it any wonder that I don’t want to come home?