The fog is breaking.  Many, many people's not too cleverly hidden motives are now becoming clear.  The lights are on in the kitchen, and the cockroaches are there to be seen.

Okay, those are pretty sloppy illustrations and metaphors, but they're true, are they not?

One phony crisis ends, and another takes its place.  The "new" one really is not at all different from the old one.

The media chirp and wail — or, in the case of NPR (and the N.Y. Times), sound especially silly as they pontificate in somber tones.

The supposedly educated come off as by far the most shallow.  They simply buy each and every line with absolutely no sense of the irony of it all — kind of like children and the commercials aimed at them on Saturday morning TV.  "Ooh!  Ooh!  Mommy, I want that.  Please!  Today!"

All that while reporters who leave the bubble momentarily are shocked to find that average working Americans tuned out long ago, and if they pay attention at all, it is to shake their heads and laugh or sigh.

On one level, all of this is sad.  The U.S. Congress was once a place of serious debate.  Now it is largely a house of self-important fools, each fighting for a microphone, only to show that all of them have absolutely nothing to say.

(Is there anyone there you personally really, really respect?)

But along with the sadness, there are reasons for joy.  Finally, finally, we have someone totally unafraid to stand up to these people and speak to them in their own language and deal with them on their own terms.

It's time to take out the trash, people!

Yeah, that's another cheap and common metaphor.  But again, it is wonderfully true, isn't it?

Smile, people.  Smile.