The Orwellian euphemism "Reliable Replacement Warhead" implicitly calls into question the reliability of our currently existing 10,000 (or more) nuclear warheads. And given that our Air Force recently lost track of a bomber carrying nuclear warheads over our own national territory, should the public not take this combined information as as a reason to worry?

Do the political and military "leaders" of America not realize how completely batshit-nuts they look, act, and sound? I realize that "The Worst and the Dullest" will vehemently deny their culpable credulity, insisting: "Just because we think stupid things and say stupid things and do stupid things: that doesn't make us stupid. It really makes us smart!"

Case in point: take Senator You-Know-Her claiming that "Just because I've come in second place to Barack Obama, that doesn't mean I've lost. It really means I've won!" Or, "Sure, Senator Obama has come in first, but that only puts him a 'close distance' away from my second place finish. So, that also means I've won!" Or, "Senator Obama has not beaten me 'badly enough' to claim that I have lost. Losing by less than some unspecified margin also means that I have won!" Or, "I get to win because I want to!" And so on and so forth.

Can America really afford the foreign-born, great-grandpa McBomb (with his ineffable "senior moments") or grandma You-Know-Her (screaming: "Losing means I win!") trying to track down our missing aircraft and their unreliable nuclear warheads? Who needs to fear "Al Qaeda" in a Pakistani cave when we've got us asleep at the switch? I mean, if "Al Qaeda" (meaning anyone who doesn't like us occupying their country) can really "follow us home" (should we stop occupying their country), then doesn't that suggest that our platinum-plated Navy and Air Force have become even more worthless than they proved on 9/11/2001? "Cognitive Dissonance" doesn't even begin to describe this national narcolepsy. George Orwell called it "Crimestop," or "protective stupidity."

When Barbara Tuchman wrote of America's "acclerating incompetence" in The March of Folly (published over twenty years ago), I thought she meant clueless ciphers like Chancellor Dick and Deputy Dubya. Now I worry that she had even lower expectations, if indeed the human mind can bear to contemplate such awful apparitions.

So I have to ask: "Why on earth should cruel, clueless killers expect "kindness" for their crimes? Only in America, I have to presume, could snake-oil salesmen deserving of a tar-and-feathering expect and demand Peter Principle promotion to even higher levels of incompetence. As James Carroll wrote back in 2004:

"The repetition of falsehoods tied to the war on terrorism and the war against Iraq has eroded the American capacity, if not to tell the difference between what is true and what is a lie, then to think that the difference matters much. The administration distorted fact ahead of the invasion, when the American people could not refute what hadn't happened yet. And the administration distorts facts now, when the American people do not remember clearly what they were told a year ago. That President Bush retains the confidence of a sizeable proportion of the electorate suggests that Americans don't particularly worry anymore about truth as a guiding principle of government."

Not only do we (or at least a lot of us) not worry about truth in government, but our own "Worst and Dullest" American demagogues -- meaning especially grandma Clinton and great-grandpa McBomb -- actually expect and demand "kindness" in return for lying to us just to keep in practice; just so they won't forget how. As perhaps what I have written above may indicate: I don't feel too kindly towards the two old war-agitators right now. They need to retire so the rest of us can clean up their monstrous mess. Restoring a little peace to this world will not prove easy; but without the usual senile suspects trying to drive while demented, we might just have a chance.