EARLY MONDAY MORNING

Sally Field called me tonight to urge me to vote for Hillary on Tuesday. An hour later, MoveOn.org called to request my vote for Barack. Both calls went to my voice mail because I was watching Extreme House Makeover, with yet another National Guard soldier stuck in Iraq so long his family is in serious trouble. He was a big guy, looked to me like he might be part Native; they had one son around ten who was charmingly feminine and a younger son with autism. Ty got him back from Iraq for a week, and his wife was toughing it out until she realized at the end of the week she'd have to say goodbye to him all over again. The soldier kept it together until he saw the mantelpiece, something he had rescued from an 1850s farmhouse which had stood on the piece of historic Virginia land he'd managed to buy before he got called up. He put his hand on the gorgeous old wood of that mantle and bawled, I mean seriously let go.

Toby Keith showed up to give the guy a Ford pick-up and sing a concert for a roomful of National Guard troops and their families. Everybody was fighting tears, including me. Here's the thing: They all said, over and over, how proud they were to fulfill their duty, that they were fighting over there so we could be free here. I know they believe there's a connection between our liberty and the disaster in Iraq: They fucking have to. It would be just too fucking much for them to realize how grievously Bush lied to them, has used them as nothing more than toilet paper to further his fortune and his wretched ego.

Even after we get them home safe, how are they going to face having been used in such a manner? I think Bush may have single-handedly broken the U.S. military. The only people who will volunteer now are those who are in such denial they won't make intelligent soldiers, those who are criminals/right-wing hate trainees, or poor people with no other alternative -- and desperation doesn't usually make good soldiers, either.

Whoever gets elected, are they really going to have the ability to stand up to the corporations and roll back tax cuts for the rich, pour that money into disability pensions and health care and social services for the growing masses of our walking wounded? Will a Democratic take-over of Congress make things enough better?

Here's something I noticed on David Letterman Friday night, the show where Hillary made two or three pre-taped appearances that were funny and proved her to be a good sport: During Dave's monologue, he made a long series of jokes about McCain, took some swipes at Bloomberg and Nader, whacked at Hillary a few times, but not a single joke about Barack. I realized I've not heard him, ever, make a joke about Barack. There was a segment a while back where Barack did a Top Ten list, but Dave doesn't have a shtick he does about Barack. I don't think this means he's a Barack supporter; in fact, I think the hands-off attitude is a bad sign. He was hands-off about Bush, too, eight years ago.

Here's something else I've noticed: A lot of feminists my age are drawing a parallel between the current white-boy bashing of Hillary over Barack and the period after the Civil War when blacks gained rights (temporarily, let's not forget, they got sold down the river really quickly) but all the women who worked so hard for abolition had to wait another sixty years for the right to vote. I see a deep anger settling in with the resignation that we still cannot get a woman elected President. I remember when women left all the various movements at the end of the sixties to say "us now, us first". I won't stand by and let us repeat the mistake of forging a wave that doesn't include all those underrepresented -- but I honestly won't mind it if we return to "us first". All the meanings of "us".