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I think invading Iraq has always been a wrong thing done wrong. Now how do we move toward the “right thing done right” quadrant?

Magnificent quote of the day from The Village Gate:

Ultimately, this election persists in becoming an intelligence test for the American people. It’s not only on policy matters, either. Do we still have the moral discernment to detect the difference between a total fake and a flawed but honorable and competent human being?

I think it’s also a test of Have We Learned Anything? Has our attending church all these years (for those of us who have) been for naught if we still can’t discern wheat from chaff? Wheat-sowers from weed-sowers? Fertile ground from hardpan? Figs from no figs? (Or, to go extrabiblical here, cattle from hat?)

Thanks, Allen. This is what I was trying to say, though not achieving this succinctness, in last month’s The elect on Judgment Day.

2004-09-02 update: In addition to Allen’s election-as-intelligence-test and my election-as-life-learning-test, William Saletan at Slate powerfully makes the case (in the wake of Zell Miller et al. at the RNC) that the election has become “a referendum on your right to hold the president accountable,” which, given that in a democracy the president works for us and we can fire him for poor performance, “a referendum on democracy.”

TAP Online: Matthew Yglesias: Three years of watching Bush makes the point: Intelligence matters more than “character.”’

According to the WaPo yesterday, Gen. Clark Reportedly Is Asked to Join Dean (as Democratic candidates for U.S. president/vice president).

My impression? Dream team.

And not just because both Dr. Dean and Gen. Clark appear to be decent, real, articulate, intelligent human beings. That alone would be a breath of fresh air. But much more important is the spirit behind them for which they’re a visible face, a whole movement for justice (of the true biblical kind, generally speaking, IMO) that gives me hope and determination to engage again in the real nitty-gritty life of the world.

Maybe I’m overstating the case, but to be able to be hopeful again about the possibilities for our future — as a country and as a world — is for me an answer to prayer.

Already-present upside: I’m not angry for the first time in nearly two years. As more of us wake up to the chronic injustice and global destruction wrought by the Bush Administration — finally a majority of us in the U.S. are awake now as polled by Zogby (my interpretation) — I’m able to let go and rest.

Anyone else experiencing this sense of relief, this lifting of weight? The sea change in perceptions that began in July is becoming visible everywhere now. I think we’re finally escaping the clutches of deceit.

Later in the day, 3:13 PM ET:

According to the AP, Clark set to enter 2004 presidential race as 10th Democratic candidate (also here).

Really, it’s this aspect of Gen. Clark that revs up my enthusiasm at his participation in any capacity, whether as presidential or VP nominee (or even as Secretary of Defense):

Clark has a resume that unnerves potential rivals — Rhodes scholar, first in his 1966 class at West Point, White House fellow, head of the U.S. Southern Command and NATO commander during the 1999 campaign in Kosovo.

I insist on smart leaders. If that’s being prejudiced against dumb leaders, then so be it.