The Shape of Days

Rick Moran is suffering from “outrage fatigue.” I don’t blame you one bit, Rick. When the surly opposition in this country sprays absurdity after absurdity across the blogosphere for months on end, reasonable people tend to become desensitized to it. The same thing happened to me a few months ago.

I wish I could provide a hyperlink or something, because that seems to be the bloggerly thing to do, but I’ve long since forgotten exactly where I read this particular piece of doggerel. I’m not sure I’d want to share it anyway. Some blogger or other wrote something in which he called the President a liar and a criminal — without actually enumerating any of his alleged lies or itemizing any of his alleged crimes. Then in the very next post he authored a lengthy and glowing defense of — wait for it — Fidel Castro.

That’s when my capacity for shock was overwhelmed. Seeing vague accusations of criminal conduct by the President followed by a full-throated defense of an actual criminal burned out one of my circuits or something.

Ever since then, I haven’t been able to feel shock or outrage. I just seem to lack the capacity. I can’t feel it any more.

So today when a blogger says that the President ought to be impeached and replaced with a Democrat, despite the degree of ignorance of how our government works that betrays, I just can’t feel surprise. Hell, I can’t even feel dismay. I just feel numb.

I don’t know, maybe I’ve just come to accept it. Maybe I’ve come to accept that the world is filled with stupid people, and the Internet is filled with stupid people who think they’re smart.

Rick sees the situation more obliquely. “Then again,” he writes, “maybe it was that Dominoes Pizza we ate last night and by tomorrow I’ll be back to my old apoplectic self.” Maybe so, Rick. Maybe so.

• Sidetracked
• Power Line: Kerry fatigue
• Sundowning