Bush's approval rating for handling the war now stands at 21%. It may drop to single digits by Christmas. That's good news.
People are deserting newspapers and the mainstream media. To some extent that's good news, although every political blogsite you visit relies on the MSM and we'll always need good reporters.
We are witnessing the collapse of a thousand familiar institutions. And one of them is the fundamentalist church. That's great news!
Bush is losing his entire governing coalition. Lines are now forming for defectors; Sen. Smith is only the latest. They can't hit the exits fast enough. They're trampling each other to get us out of Iraq.
The danger of running an unpopular war is the destruction it causes in our own country.
This war may be a bigger wrecking ball to American society than Vietnam was. (And for those who weren't here, it looked very much in 1968 as if America was falling apart. Riots in the streets, assassinations; it was horrible.) The result was a loss of faith in our basic institutions. "Ozzie and Harriet" died and Andy Griffith got canceled.
Cynicism became pervasive, and then got co-opted into comedy. People stopped believing their government. Some headed for the right and became violent (Eric Rudolph, Tim McVeigh), while others headed for the left and became, well, Kossacks, activists, you and me.
Gay people came out, and refused to go back in the closet even in the face of Ronald Reagan, Jerry Falwell and AIDS. That's good news.
In Falwell and his ilk we are seeing the last dying gasp of fundamentalist Christianity. Now it turns out half the megapreachers are giving blowjobs down at the bus station.
They sold their souls to the Republican Party and now the devil's getting his due.
Of course one should never discount the ability of religious thought police to mount a comeback; there are always gullible people who need to be told what to do. Politics is a pendulum that swings back and forth.
But in the same way that "old Europe" embraced surrealism and existentialism after the pointless insanity of World War I, America will never be the same after George W. Bush.
We have the opportunity now to create something new and better, a more just, more inclusive, more creative society. Out of the current destruction we will build new institutions that serve us better. DailyKos is part of that; the new, freed-up Episcopal Church is too.
Eruope has abandoned the Pope; that's good news. Mark Foley got chased out of Congress when someone finally noticed he was chasing after boys.
The Christian Coalition? Dead. Mel Gibson, Opus Dei? Dead. Fox News? Killed off by Keith Olbermann. NBC? Hundreds of layoffs. These are only the first institutions to collapse. The Washington Post is looking shaky and so is The New York Times.
A new day is dawning. Welcome to the permanent Democratic majority.
Now get busy: "power to the people" is already here if you'll use it.