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Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
08.30.05

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Summer's over, and the world's still here

AUSTIN -- Seems like every year at the end of summer there's this sense of coming back from somewhere, whether we've gone anywhere or not. Whatever the summer pattern is -- a swim, the kids, a stroll --- it's as though we sort of blink and there's the world again, still there. Very much still there.

I suppose if you're George W. Bush, the world never does go away no matter how long you spend on vacation; it just sort of camps at the end of your driveway like Cindy Sheehan. Those of us who study politics and the media got to watch Cindy Sheehan being slimed by the right-wing attack machine -- hey, no free passes just because you're a mom whose kid was killed in Iraq. We also get to watch left-wing PR people exploit her grief, because you can't even be for peace without public relations anymore. This is The World, after all.

Check back in on the world and find the same people making the same arguments about Iraq -- glass is half-empty, glass is half-full; things are better, things are worse; is not, is so. Meantime, the odometer of war keeps clicking higher no matter who makes the arguments or who hears them -- 1,800 dead Americans, uncounted tens of thousands of Iraqis....