A week ago, I asked how bad political discourse can get in this country.   Discouraged as I was, I hadn’t seen this coming.  Perhaps – despite everything my family and friends tell me – I’m too optimistic.

Last week, Republicans who hope to be president stood silently by as their constituents cheered for the notion of letting uninsured people die needless deaths.  None of them had the courage to tell the morons in the audience to STFU.

At last night’s Republican debate, similar morons – or perhaps the same morons (the two debates were held 85 miles apart) – booed an American solider serving in Iraq because he asked if the candidates would try to circumvent his ability to serve his country because he is gay.

Whether or not you agree with our country’s wars, this man and thousands like him puts his life on the line every day on our behalf and when he says he wants to keep serving, he is booed by the very people he’s serving and not one – NOT ONE – of these so-called “leaders” will say a word in his defense.

Afterward, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman called the boos “unfortunate,” providing yet another definition for “too little, too late.”

I am more ashamed of my country today than ever before and that’s going some.

© Mark Floegel, 2011