Why is this America a pipe dream?

Imagine a country …

• where a visibly aging 72-year-old presidential candidate chose a competent, experienced vice presidential candidate to possibly succeed him in office.

• where the candidate who experienced torture first-hand still spoke out when his country engaged in the very same practice.

• where the candidate who recently confused Spain for a Latin American country and routinely confuses Shiites and Sunnis was not considered a foreign-policy expert.

• where hunting moose and wolves by ATV and helicopter, respectively, was not considered sporting.

• where the candidate whose spouse once belonged to a secessionist party was questioned for her patriotism.

• where her lie over the Bridge to Nowhere was not repeated long after it had been exposed.

• where her pregnant, unwed 17-year-old was considered a casualty of absentee parenting and abstinence-only sex education.

• where folksy language, winks, and shameless appeals to Joe Sixpack were no substitute for real answers at a nationally televised debate.

• where the party that hatches taxpayer-funded bailout plans for AIG and Wall Street firms also found money to pay for better schools and health care for the uninsured.

• where the party that has run up the largest debt in this country’s history taxed the rich to pay for its wars and its Wall Street bailouts.

• where the candidate who argued in 1995 that market regulations were “destroying the American family, the American dream” was held accountable for his contribution to the current meltdown on Wall Street.

• where brilliant academic achievement at Columbia and Harvard was not considered a liability.

• where community organizers were not ridiculed at a national political convention.

• where the candidate who warned in March 2007 of the looming housing crisis and later warned of Wall Street excesses was recognized for his foresight.

• where the candidate whose plan to withdraw from Iraq (supported by the Maliki government and now the Bush administration) got some credit for his foreign-policy acumen.

• where the elected officials who used lies to justify an unwinnable war for oil were impeached.

• where the party has brought us eight years of corruption, mismanagement, and reckless foreign policy still didn’t have a good chance of winning in November.