Once upon a time, before Bill Clinton, before GHWB, or Reagan, just before Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, anyone who promoted domestic and foreign policies which brought the US to such a strait would have been ashamed. Limbaugh has to be certifiably sociopathic, or he'd never show himself in public again. Instead of claiming everyone in the world is nuts but him and his dittoheads.

Certainly Limbaugh and Bush would not have been rewarded so handsomely for being so wrong about so much for so long. Nope, instead they and their peers would have been hanging their heads in shame, remorse and regret. There may even be apologies for having ridiculed those who were right, questioning their patriotism and devotion to country. The families of the people who have died so that Exxon/Mobil and Shell can get those contracts would received sincere apologies this time.

Now, however, that shame is handled by continuing to ignore reality. It's all rhetoric, we don't torture, we are winning, look at Afghanistan after 7 years - we still hold have of Kandahar and all of Kabul, even the Green Zone there. And Iraq, why Afghanistan is deadlier than Iraq. By desperately staving off the inevitable crashes until they might occur on someone elses watch.

It's a bit as if the Titanic has rammed an iceberg head-on, and lost that fight. The Captain is going to climb the smokestack, and sit there until the last glub, then turn over the mess to someone, anyone, else. And then jump into the lifeboat which is at the ready, claiming the ship didn't sink on his watch.

Arf