Let us bow down to the great God Seriousness. We are lectured, again and again by right wing gasbags that critics of the Bush administration lack a "serious" approach to the problems of global terrorism and the Iraq war. We are told that a highly accomplished retired general like Wesley Clark has no "serious" solutions to offer, while an incompetent buffoon like Bush takes terrorism "seriously."
How did Republican authoritarians claim the mantle of Seriousness and the right to ridicule their opponents as unserious. I believe that killing is the key. War is state-sponsored murder, and the willingness to wage war - to kill large numbers of people is considered by Americans to be SERIOUS BUSINESS. If you lack the power and the willingness to wage war, you are not serious. If you lack the power, but are willing (like most wingnut pundits and commentators), you will still be considered serious.
The bottom line is that Bush and the other murderous clowns in the White House are taken seriously because of their willingness and ability to mete out torture and death to their opponents. Their thinly concealed claim to the power of martial law in a permanent emergency of everlasting war is intoxicating stuff to their authoritarian followers. By contrast, those who are advocating peace through negotiations are viewed as impotent children, lacking in seriousness.
Make no mistake, millions of Americans liked the idea of being led by a pair of murderous psychotics, Bush and Cheney, at a time when America appeared under deadly assault by fanatical enemies. Now that the terror threat is understood to have been ridiculously exaggerated we are still saddled with the psychos in the White House. "Serious" has always been a political code word for the willingness to kill. Our killer leadership is still willing, but it is getting harder for America to take them seriously, since their killing spree seems to be leading us to disaster.
It is time for us to leave the "seriousness" of torture and murder behind and find a better scheme for solving our problems. A good start would be denouncing the murderous policies of Bush and Cheney and declaring their intellectual and moral bankruptcy.