Devoted to the headlines?

My attentiveness to current events is a cyclical thing: I get really into it, compulsive about checking the latest, disappointed if I run out of time to read every story. And then something, or a series of somethings, happens that so disgusts me that I do a cost/benefit analysis: what am I really getting out of knowing all of this? A stomach ache? The dueling desires to protest in the streets and move to a remote village in Spain?

Of course, in the back of my head is Thomas Jefferson and his reminder, passed down through the centuries, that it is our responsibility as citizens of a democracy to stay well-informed so that we can spend our votes wisely and call our "leaders" to the carpet when they've overstepped their bounds...

...like this week... and the amazingly blatant dismissal of Libby's sentence.

Oh, the irony of stomping on the legal system that came of our country's hard-won independence, just days before we are set to celebrate that independence. That freedom?

Further, I have been defending our Democratic siblings in Congress since the beginning of the 110th because I've been listening to C-Span and I've heard them giving great talk about ending the war and wresting back control of our government. But then, from the Huffington Post piece on Libby:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's decision showed the president "condones criminal conduct."

So this is the decision that shows he condones criminal conduct? It wasn't the illegal wire tapping, the suspension of habeas corpus or the completely unfounded war? It was getting one of his lapdogs out of the clink?

As we're eating our hot dogs and shooting off bottle rockets, I hope we are also taking some time tomorrow to consider the country we are celebrating and how to improve so that it comes to deserve the celebration.