Cue the twilight zone music...

Actually, I've been doing that a lot lately...I had a couple of opportunities to channel Rod Serling just today. The first came when I read Steve Coll's comment in the "talk of the town" column in this week's New Yorker. Apparently some people on the right, convinced that now the country is about to re-endorse Bush's "policy" in Iraq, are now referring to General David Petraeus as "Bush's Grant." In this scenario Bush, of course, becomes...(cough, cough)Abraham Lincoln(?!?!!!).

Then this afternoon, I was talking to a family friend, a sheep rancher, about a contentious point of English grammar. This fellow wondered whether you say, "It is HE," or "it is HIM," when asked "Who is it." I said I was reasonably sure he wanted "it is HE," adding that a lot of people use "him" even if they know better because it sounds affected. The guy nodded and replied, "Yes, even RUSH LIMBAUGH misuses it(!?!!!!)."

Can you believe that millions of our countrymen believe that George W. Bush is the Abraham Lincoln of the "war on terror" and that Rush LImbaugh is a towering intellect, even an oracle? There is probably more information from all parts of the globe available here than ever before, yet we still have a significant portion of the population living in what can only be described as a parallel universe, a fantasy world.

No wonder we are in so much trouble.