And now for one of my pet peeves.

ONe of the things that drives me most crazy about the way that the mainstream media phrases everything is their overuse of the world 'tragedy.' Tragedy, if you look it up in the dictionary, is primarily a literary form--it is a form of drama in which a seemingly strong lead character is destroyed by some sort of hidden (or not so hidden) flaw. Tragic heroes are ones like Oedipus or Hamlet--they have some problem, not directly visible at first, that destroys them. This creates obvious dramatic tension that is heavily dependent on irony.

That is why I am driven absolutely batshit crazy when every fucking newsanchor in the world decides to use 'tragic' as a blanket term whenever even the most minor negative thing happens. Very few things in the real world are actually 'tragic', yet I have to constantly hear how every fucking event from Hurricane Katrina, to the September 11 attacks to these Virginia Tech attacks are 'tragic.'

And ironically, the one major news event that is truly tragic is never described as such. That would be the collapse of the Bush Presidency--his supposed strength in 2002, his aggressive support for invading Iraq and his "strong" anti-terror credentials is the very issue that has pushed his approval ratings into the high thirties or the low twenties. Yet I hear noone describe this collapse as 'tragic.'

That word has no meaning any more. I wish people would stop using it.

AAAAAHHHH

Bush and Condoleezza Rice, apparently don't think that the Congress has the authority to defund the war. (Link via MyDD).

Now, I've always found the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 something more than interesting--the constitution is crazy vague on what the fuck was meant by having the right to issue a 'declaration of war' reserved to the Congress, but also giving the President full authority as Commander in Chief, which, nominally, would include the ability to deploy troops when needed. The overlap of authority is fairly evident here, and it is unclear exactly how it should be resolved. Hence why I think it was a good idea that Congress was willing to sit down and make an explicit set of guidelines under which the President could wage war.

If the President really intends on ignoring the instructions of Congress to end the war, however, then this whole system is thrown into disarray. If Congress passes some sort of resolution that has actual teeth in it (something that I somewhat doubt), and Bush ignores it, then we will be faced with a Constitutional crisis not seen since Nixon used the FBI to harass his enemies. I'm afraid for this country. I have a feeling that something really, really bad is about to happen, and that there is really nothing that anyone can do about it.

But I guess it's just a feeling for now.