Let's face it...this country is in a mess. No, not "a" mess, a bunch of messes. In fact, it IS a mess. There are so many things that are screwed up it would keep you up at night every night if you allowed yourself to think about it too much.

There are the obvious problems with the economy and the unstable financial institutions. It is so bad that even the best and brightest economists in the world can't agree on how to get us out of it. There is the mother of all insurance companies that sold insurance policies without having the financial means of paying off on even a small fraction of them. And now they are using OUR money to pay "retention bonuses" to keep the very people that created the nightmare. We are at risk of losing our entire auto industry, along with millions of jobs and pensions. Our states are at risk of going bankrupt.

We are reeling from the effects of a decades old ponzi scheme that has left many financially ruined. House prices are continuing to decline. The number of people losing their jobs continues to grow at a frightening pace. There are more and more empty storefronts even in places that are holding up fairly well during the housing crash. Affordable health care is unavailable for many.

We are still embroiled in two wars that we aren't sure how to end without turning the Middle East on its head.

Peak Oil, which should be one of the most important issues of the day is so far down on the list of on-going crisis, you rarely hear about it anymore. Our memories are so flippin' short that the energy-efficient cars you had to stand in line for a few months ago are piling up at the dealerships because gas prices have returned to a reasonable level, even though most people agree they will skyrocket once demand picks up again.

We can argue about whether the President knows what he's doing or not. Whether he has accomplished enough in his first 60 days. Complain about rookie mistakes. We can make a big fuss about whether it is smart for him to go on Leno or not, and fret about an inadvertant slight he made. Maybe it is healthy somehow to focus on the small stuff, since the big stuff could easily make us all suicidal. 

But seriously, doesn't it just scare the livin' crap out of you to think about how close we came to having McCain/Palin at the helm through this?

Seriously.