A Comma?

The president has declared in a CNN interview that when history has been written the violence in Iraq will be “just a comma”. Really?

Tell that to the American families who have lost their loved ones in the battle for a mere punctuation mark in the annals of history. I’m sure they’ve hoped for at least an exclamation mark or any other form of punctuation that sets their sacrifice apart from all the other clauses in the story of this war.

Tell that to the Iraqi families who have had their lives ripped apart, probably for several generations, while the president turns their country into a breeding ground for terrorists, probably for several generations, and then in a run-on sentence helps to drive them over the edge of civil war. They’re probably hoping that this administration will start considering the use of a few question marks here and there.

Mr. Bush’s comment is wishful thinking. He should be so lucky as to have his war in Iraq reduced to a pause in the narrative of his time. But it’s the kind of wishful thinking engaged in by someone who wakes up in jail and hopes that nothing really bad happened during last night’s drunken street race. I don't think there's any other time in history when war has been regarded as a comma, and this war won't be marked that way, either.

My hope is that inane comments like this one will become the period that marks the end of this administration. Periods come at the end of a sentence; and I feel like we’ve served our time in the captivity of incompetence and our sentence should end. It’s time to close this chapter in history and begin a new one.

What will tomorrow bring?