Too long, of course. But 9/11 extended it a bit--people scared and willing to believe the rhetoric a bit longer. Americans didn't want to believe that WMDs were an outright lie or that Iraq was really about oil. They wanted to believe that Bush was doing the right thing. They really wanted to believe that.

But, after 12 years, it comes down to this for a lot of voters: where's ANYthing that Repubs promised the American people? ANYthing? They delivered on absolutely NONE of what they promised, none of what the AM radio right-wing nutjobs promised, none of what that inane 1994 "Contract For America" promised.

Sure some of us knew from the beginning it was all bullshit and that they were crooks, snake-oil salesmen, warmongers, and thieves.

But your typical voter kept thinking, just like people do with misbehaving teenagers, "Oh, they'll turn this around. They'll start doing the right thing. They wouldn't lie to us."

The lies, deception, and corruption do inevitably start to sink in, though. And since 2004, hasn't it just all gotten worse and worse. Body parts in streets in Iraq. Frist, DeLay, Abramoff . . . No end in sight.


Will 2006 be the year when America wakes up? I hope so.