George Bush spent the Fourth of July the same way he did in 2002, 2004 and 2005 — in West Virginia. This time, before a group of military members and veterans. The AP tells the story. But in all that story's detail, the most important line comes as almost an afterthought:

“About 2,000 people, including members of the 167th Airlift Wing and their families, were invited to the event.”

In other words, even when making appearances before the military, nowadays Bush only gives speeches to “invited military personnel.” Every person at the rally was invited there by the administration's advance men. The selection process has been mentioned before, even from sources as unthreatening as Good Morning, America. Wherever he goes, the president is surrounded by sycophants, like a caesar in his last days. So those quotes in the above-linked story — quotes like “Whether we should have gone in or not is another matter, but we need to support our troops” and “I think that Scooter Libby did the right thing to take the fall for everybody … For God's sake, it's not Watergate” — are now the best thing this administration is capable of. Even its most ardent supporters aren’t sure whether the war should have been fought, but are simply caught up in the notion that more Americans must be killed in order to justify the Americans that have been killed. And when not wondering over the war's legitimacy, they’re trying to defend the presidency by claiming its current state is not precisely what it appears to be. As Keith Olbermann alluded in his commentary calling on Bush and Cheney to resign on July 3, the commutation of Scooter Libby is the firing of Archibald Cox — that last desperate, hubris-filled move before the fall.

Last night, I stood on the balcony of a 10th floor condo out near Rock Island Road, in the Far West beyond State Road 7 — wilderness area to me, but it appears they do have civilization, including condominiums. From that vantage point, I could see fireworks displays up and down the coast of South Florida, from Deerfield to Dania, like a massive beach landing. The Fourth of July made over into the great moments of American history. Normandy. Landing in Cuba and screaming up San Juan Hill. The shores of Tripoli. Our history has often been written — is being written — in blood and sand. After burning through a six of Sam Adams — the beer of patriots, of course — and peering out over that, I can’t help but feel some sense of majesty and futility. To the south, the traces of fireworks near Dolphin Stadium can be seen. Much closer to the west, colorful explosions light up the night over Plantation and Oakland Park, and further west in Sunrise. Everyone on the balcony — there’s about six or seven of us — hums a few bars of an American song, a snippet of “The Star Spangled Banner” here, a bit of “America the Beautiful” there, as the booming and multihued glows continue and amplify in every direction.

This morning, driving to work, I saw an American flag in the intersection of Lyons Road and Hillsborough Boulevard. All the cars turning northward from Lyons onto Hillsborough ran over it. No one stopped to pick it up, and as I turned southward and passed by it, neither did I.