By Tom Toles
Charlie Sheen brought his traveling madhouse to DC this week, not that we needed any additional crazy here. This city of Former Student Council Presidents took the opportunity to channel its inner Professional Wrestling Fan with catcalls, cheers, boos and general ruckus, completing the transformation of Our Great Nation into a full-time Jerry Springer Show.
My initial inclination to not think about Charlie Sheen at all has given way to suspicion that he in fact represents a True Cultural Marker in our capitulation to National Insanity. No, nobody respects Charlie Sheen, nor likes him. Respect and affection are insufficient to our present state of incoherence. We can no longer manage with normal amounts of mental mayhem, we now require the “epic” dose. We can handle it!
The quality of debate in the federal government is already but a whisker away from Charlie Sheen-quality ravings, and I think we have been afforded a glimpse of the near future. Already the one sanest approach to health care costs we’ve enacted is being repudiated by BOTH PARTIES! We may be insane, but it works on TV and at the ballot box! WINNING! Duh.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tom-toles/post/we-are-all-his-godesses-now/2011/04/20/AFgzRPCE_blog.html