If Wishes Were Horses

A reality check for Americans as they Christmas shop and prepare for holiday screenings of “It’s a Wonderful Life”:

The disaster in Iraq has lasted longer than World War II and killed more of us than the airliners that destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.

After expressing their pain at the polls, voters are getting the same talking heads spouting the same gibberish:

On “Meet the Press,” Congressmen and rent-a-Generals debate tactics for turning a killing ground for murderous zealots into a working democracy while Moqtada al-Sadr threatens to bring down the Maliki government if the Prime Minister even talks to President Bush.

On “60 Minutes,” the American commander, General Abizaid, bristles at an interviewer’s use of the word “defeat” and insists that “Iraq could stabilize.”

As my immigrant parents used to say, if wishes were horses, we would all be riding.