This observation in The New York Times re: the financial crisis pretty much sums up the collective denial of the media and the political culture and says a lot about why we don't see more coverage of Iraq and the other losing war, Afghanistan. Here we are, in the midst of two wars -- both of which, but certainly Iraq, brought us to the brink of this financial crisis, in terms billions we have spent in borrowed cash -- and they don't seem to get the fact that we are in wartime and have been for more than half a decade:
The capital almost had the feel of wartime. President Bush appeared in the Rose Garden and gravely appealed for bipartisanship. Democrats, starting with their presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, responded in kind. Congressional assistants spent their days glued to cable television, while across the city, people who a few days ago had few contacts with Wall Street outside of their 401(k) statements were speaking knowingly about credit-default swaps and debating the latest moves by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
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