Has anyone noticed how this recent acid attack case is an allegory of what is happening in our country at present?
Bethany Storro's face is badly swollen and damaged by acid burns. She tells police and the media she was attacked in a park by "a black woman"--an attacker apparently jealous of her for being a "pretty girl." Storro claims it was only God that saved her:
God is watching over me. I believe in him. That his hands are on me and I can't live the rest of my life like that--in fear. I can't let what she did to me wreck my life.
In the end it turns out the acid attack was self-inflicted and the evocation of a black woman assailant was entirely fictional. Oh, well.
America is in a deep economic slump, the result of disastrous GOP policies and decades of a country used to living beyond its means. Yet as many on the right would have it, our economy is where it is because of Clinton-era policies and Obama's spending (I've heard "Don't blame Bush for Obama's problems!" once too often) and the most pressing issues we now face as a country are 1) Muslims trying to build a mosque and 2) immigrants from Latin America.
Suffering from self-inflicted wounds, the right uses the opportunity to blame the other and, just like Bethany Storro, has to bring God into it too.
For many Americans it is only their very white idea of God and a pair of rose-colored glasses that can save their vision.