Imagining what the Founding Fathers would think about our nation today always constitutes an interesting exercise. America’s strength and enduring democracy probably would have delighted many of them. On the other hand, its political parties and many foreign alliances might have raised an eyebrow or two.

The anti-war movement seems to be at a crossroads these days. The rapid contraction of anti-war activism after George W. Bush left office caused many skeptics, including activists themselves, to wonder if most of the protesters had been more anti-Bush than anti-war. However, there are signs that the ranks of Americans who are determined to protest the evils of war, no matter which party controls the White House, is growing.

In the wake of the decision by the Justice Department to find the OLC lawyers who wrote the torture memo guilty only of “poor judgment” not professional misconduct, we need to take a closer look at the extreme views of one of the men exonerated and what this exoneration says about us as a nation and a people.

George Washington foresaw the very state that we find ourselves in. America is factioned; divided by two Parties whose overreaching goal has always been to subvert the will of the people, bending it to obey the will of the party. Neither party enjoys even close to fifty percent approval of the People. And yet, if a Party wins an election, their will is forced down the throats of the People as surely as if they were King, and their will were divine. We do not live in a Representative Democracy. We live in a two king Government; one that is almost completely deaf to the will of the people, to the needs of the masses, and to the freedom that our Constitution guaranteed us. That Government, of the Party, by the Party, and for the Party, has failed, not because the will of the people was not clear; but because the will of both parties was to destroy each other, eliminate opposition, and rule according the Party’s strict ideology. In all of this, the will of the people is barely remembered…useful to both parties now as merely a sound byte.

Dear President Obama;

I wanted to take the occasion of Presidents Day to write to you. Today is the day we celebrate the birthdays of two of our all time great presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

It is fitting that we celebrate the first of our presidents and the president who held the Union together and ended the precious practice of human slavery. These men stand as examples of what America can be and should be.

Mr. President, there is an issue that you have consciously ignored, the issue of the Bush Administration’s torture program. As someone involved in politics and activism I completely grasp the level of acrimony you would experience from the Republicans and the conservatives of this nation if you fully investigate the ordering and carrying out of torture.

There is no doubt your political opponents would seize on this and call it a political witch-hunt. They would use it against every Democrat in the nation this fall, as well as using it as an excuse to oppose your agenda for the rest of your term.

Yet, Mr. President, this should not matter to you. You took the same oath as Washington and Lincoln to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic.

George Washington. That about says it all . . . unless, of course you’re Sarah Palin. Then you just pull names out of the air and think your bullshit can cover the gaping holes in your knowledge!