Hail Albania!

ABC News interrupted its coverage of Paris Hilton’s comings and goings long enough to report that President Bush received a “hero’s” welcome in Albania, and fresh from that happy experience, felt emboldened to visit Capitol Hill to stump for the federal Immigration bill.

I’m glad there’s a country in this world that Bush can visit and feel the love because he sure as hell doesn’t get that in America, but then, unlike Albanians, Americans have never taken to totalitarian leaders. Even though the “rule of law” is frequently perverted beyond recognition in this country, the “principle” that the Law means something in the land is as ingrained in our minds as the Pledge of Allegiance.

That Bush consistently “disses” the Constitution doesn’t trouble the average Albanian. Perhaps in Bush Albanians see a kindred, a link to the Roman, Ottoman, or Communists who once ruled the land.

But how pathetic is an American President who feels emboldened by a state visit to Albania? Not the UK or Germany or Japan or Australia, places where American heads of state usually receive a friendly welcome, but Albania.

The irony of this was lost on the talking mannequins at ABC. America has slipped so low in the eyes of the world, the Bush record is so dismal, full of error, hubris, and failure, that an inconsequential visit to a marginal nation is given the same gravity as a visit to a country with some juice on the world stage.

We will be rid of Bush in less than 600 hundred days, but his twisted legacy will live for decades. The sad but incontrovertible fact is that the damage Bush has wrought is largely irreversible.

Paris Hilton is in the slammer, crying for her mommy; the New York Yankees have won nine of their last ten game to climb above the .500 mark; and the major contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination are contorting themselves to prove their religious “faith,” a clear recognition that none of them can win unless they pull in a decent percentage of “religious” voters. Hillary Clinton: “When my husband was getting serviced in the Oval Office by that woman, Miss Lewinsky, my daughter and my faith were the only things I had. Without deep and abiding faith we would not have survived those dark, troubling days. What Bill and that woman, Miss Lewinsky, did was wrong, but my faith made it all turn out right.”

Sweet Jesus! Bush, Paris, Hillary – the inmates are definitely in control of the asylum. The rest of us own the ticket and have no choice but to take the ride.