This is where we swam

I get why Nancy Grace wants to whip up outrage over the Casey Anthony case.  It inflates her ratings, which increases her TVQ and her net worth.  And I get why the prosecutor would want to cast the verdict as the greatest WTF ever in the history of jurisprudence, because he brought the case under the wrong charge and with insufficient evidence, and then tried to convict the defendant in the Court of Outraged Moms.

But why on earth this country was witness to such an emotional display by, as I so even-handedly put it on Twitter yesterday, the "self-righteous indignation monkeys," is a trickier question.

I have no idea whether Anthony killed her child or not.  But given the murkiness of the evidence in the case, I doubt that yesterday's verdict is significant for any reason other than so many people seem to be so upset about it.  Personally, I resent the prosecutor's strategy of trying to convict Anthony by casting her as a drunken whore, because I think that it damages women everywhere, and perpetuates the idea that women, especially moms, can only be chaste, self-sacrificing martyrs, or else we are guilty of failing society's expectations, and as such deserve whatever charge an ambitious camera-hungry prosecutor can make stick.  And also, speaking as a drunken whore myself, I resent the implication that we're necessarily toddler-killers.  I have hardly ever advocated toddler-killing.  I mean, sure, on airplanes, but I think we can all agree on that.

Look, I know dead babies is sad.  But you know what, besides Tot Mom, actually does kill a hell of a lot of children?   (And no, Leah Remini, it's not psychiatry.)   

Ask the EPA.  The EPA knows what kills, cripples, and permanently disfigures and disables children.  It knows what gives babies brain damage.  It knows what shuts down their internal organs and puts them into comas.  And the EPA does more to prevent the taking of childrens' lives in one minute than all the tsking, yammering heads on television will ever do.  And if you doubt this, or even if, holy shit, you're just interested in the health of the next generation, check out what the EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection is up to, because it's pretty damn impressive. 

And, needless to say, like every other governmental agency that looks after the people, (that's people-people, not corporation-people) they're under attack by Republicans, including those who wish to become president in 2012.  But this is not the ordinary "less regulation!" attack that voters hear every election cycle.  This time, they mean it.  They don't just want to appoint a bunch of industry hacks to head the agency and play fiddle while the Cuyahoga burns, because, unfortunately, even under Republican hood ornaments, the agency remains full of a bunch of career do-gooders who take their jobs seriously.  So, what they want to do is de-fund it completely and take away not only its teeth, put its tongue, lips, mouth, voice, everything.  

But why especially now, you ask?  I mean, beside the fact that the Republicans have never been more in the pockets of the industries that pollute our air, water, and land?

Well, whatever the reason, I'm sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with fracking.  

I'm sure it has nothing to do with our struggle to find inexpensive domestic fuel, and especially now with natural gas being touted as a clean energy source that can replace fossil fuels in certain applications, and the need to extract oil and gas from the ground cheaply becomes more urgent to U.S. companies, and therefore the need to control the EPA becomes more urgent, because we wouldn't want some ole' big government job-killing agency to tell us that it's a kind of a huge deal if your tap water bursts into flame, now would we?

And since we're asking rhetorical questions, why aren't the TV ladies crying over self-proclaimed mother of 28 Michelle Bachmann's threats to shut down an agency that saves the lives of children every goddamn day?  Why is that?  Why would the media be afraid to attack a woman who wants to hurt children?  I'm pretty sure Nancy Grace and Julie Chen have heard of the GOP, and so I can't imagine what they could be waiting for.