The American Revolutionary War lasted, by the most generous estimate, eight years, from 1775 to the Peace of Paris in 1783. The Civil War took four years from Sumter to Appomattox. World War One was fought with American participation for a year or so. World War Two, from Pearl Harbor to the instrument of surrender on the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor lasted less than four, punctuated by the German surrender in Reims and Karlshorst even sooner.

And here we are, entering the sixth year of our awful engagement in Iraq, with neither an end nor victory in sight. It's telling that we don't even know what victory looks like anymore. A Federal Iraq held together by force of arms or some new tyrant? An Iranian fiefdom that, for the sake of appearances and our prestige, tries to be somewhat discreet about its subservience to Tehran?

Meanwhile, we've lost close to four thousand American dead, tens of thousands grievously injured, trillions of dollars, and uncounted numbers of Iraqis. Literally uncounted, because nobody keeps statistics on their dead.

Meanwhile, here at home, the idea that we could wage war on the cheap, with borrowed money and while shifting the tax burden to the middle class, is a cruel, tragic joke. The dollar has lost a bit less than half of its value. Banks are folding. We've entered, in mood if not yet perhaps fact, the third Bush recession. The newest term in the lexicon is jingle mail; homeowners are mailing the keys to homes they can no longer afford to their mortgagers.

Meanwhile, we still haven't caught Osama bin Laden, still haven't rebuilt the World Trade Center, still wake up every day to that awful hole in the skyline. And no wonder, really, because even the Pentagon has now finally admitted that there was no relationship of note or consequence between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

So yes, this a serious moment. The people who brought us here are still in place, for the time being. They are, as ever, unrepentant. But if you're looking to your trusted media to describe and yes, lament this diminished state of our union, you're likely to be disappointed. Something is horribly wrong in America, and still they chirp on, awaiting no doubt the next missing white woman.

It is to weep.

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