"What we’re seeing with the Petraeus sexcapades is a classic magician’s misdirection"

That quote from The Anchoress as she looks deeper into the scandal of the day:

Two months past the attack on Benghazi, which resulted in the death of an American Ambassador and three others — an attack we are told the White House watched while ordering no response; an attack the mainstream media helpfully blacked-out, at first, then allowed to be spun — we are now being served The Prestige, where all of reality is being turned on its head, and the audience isn’t even sure what it’s seeing, so it simply becomes giddy, and content to be led.

If the nation is content to forget the image of Ambassador Chris Stevens’ naked body being hauled away by a crowd “taking him to the hospital where he later died”; if the nation is completely fine with a truly heinous story of government malfeasance, depraved indifference to human life, political calculation and incompetence being turned into bread and circuses for the mobs, well, then shame on the nation, for choosing to be entertained, once again, by the people who know that all the mob really wants is a show, and is quite pleased to give it to them.

She's got more and it's worth a gander.

Yet more worthy is the macro perspective she's taking on events, tying it back to what is real, what is true, what is piercing, even necessary:

I know some say “America cannot end.” But that is the first illusion we must put away, because it is all about pride — all about idolatry. It says America is eternal, when nothing is but God. Some say “we just need the right message,” but who had the right-er message than Christ, and the crowd still called for Barabbas. Who was more blessed than the apostles and saints, but they still were set upon and slain. Who was given a greater commission than Moses? And what kept him from entering the Promised Land?

God’s blessing, if it is truly upon America, does not mean she survives forever, the Dudley Do-right of Nations. In fact, if she is truly blessed, it means she gets to suffer for the sake of clarity — to spend some time in the crucible, in order to be refined.

Perhaps part of that refinement means we must rid ourselves of the impurities of our own fascinations with all that is false, or fantastic or merely distracting. I have mostly divested myself of television and pop culture, which keeps all of us both attuned to and somewhat vulnerable to the movement of conventional wisdom (read: sentimentalism) that runs the mob.

Now, with this election over, and the writing on the wall, I believe it is time to divest myself of my too-enthralled-attention to politics, which just a glance at Drudge will tell you is all-illusions, and has been for a very long time. I’m done giving attention and credence to the princes of the air, and the daily theater. I’m setting my attention and my eyes where they must go to prepare for what is coming; what I am feeling called to at this point has nothing at all to do with politics and everything to do with helping to prepare and mature our spirits for what lies ahead.

I've been feeling the same tug.  Politics has been a mainstay on these pages for years, with a sprinkling of that here and there having to do more with that macro perspective I referenced earlier.  Don't be surprised if I attempt to flip the focus.

I think it to be necessary.  I think it to be past due.

Hope you'll stick around anyway.

Comments

[tim aka The Godless Heathen]

I'm there.

[Rick]

Awesome, thanks tim.

[GoneWithTheWind]

The election was stolen. Obama is not the legal president and likely many Democrats elected to congress benefitted from the massive voter fraud as well. Recount, OR Revote, OR Impeach.

[tim aka The Godless Heathen]

I'm gonn'a go out on a limb here and say that GWTW isn't there...yet.

Or that’s some serious, dead on satire.

[Leslie]

That focus is where the power is, Rick.
Looking forward to it.

[Tim Chesterton]

I too am looking forward to that refocussing, Rick.