On refreshing indignation

I was just listening to a clip of Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.  He was outraged at the President's use of the NSA to engage in domestic survelliance without a court approval.  Here's what he had to say:

"And this warentless eavesdropping program is not authorized by the Patriot Act.  It's not authorized by any act of Congress and it's not overseen by any court...  It's being conducted under a secret Presidential order, based on secret legal opinions by the same Justice department lawyers who argued secretly that the President could justify the use of torture!  Mr. President, it's time we had some checks and balances in this country.  We are a democracy!"

Aw, that's so cute, isn't it?  I mean doesn't it just get you right here [taps heart].  That tone of righteous anger.  Of indignation.  Of shock.  It reminds me of a sign I saw a lot of during the clumsily fradulent presidental election of 2000.  "This is America. Count every vote."  The people who held those signs were so great.  They were shocked that something like that could happen.  That the Bush family could manipulate the most powerful country on the planet to install their idiot son in the White House.

Maybe I'm just too cynical in my old age but it's been a long time since I could work up a good tone of shocked indignation.  It makes me feel a little nostalgic when I hear it.  A little sad, too.  Because I know this country is long past the Age of Innocence and well into the Empire stage.  But sometimes I wish it wasn't.

Comments

[Anna]

Although you may not believe that politicians have the right/ability to be really, truly, outraged - that doesn't necessarily mean that common citizens have lost that right simply becuase their country has gone a way they would rather it not. Especially when we watch as a sitting president, for the first time in the history of the country, goes on national television and admits to breaking the law. I think outrage is founded, and necessary if we want to change it. Don't accept defeat just yet.

[barb]

Yeah, I agree, totally. We should be outraged (means we haven't lost hope in the ideals of democracy) and I really hope something happens (that something being impeachment) ... I just don't know if it will. And that's sad!