I am a super hero.

Last night with the midnight oil burning, I was tapping away at some work while listening to mp3’s. Something caught my attention. I pulled my headphones off to hear my son screamed at the top of his lungs.

“DAAAAAADDDEEEEE!”

I run to my sons room just across the hall to see those two-year old eyes filled with tears and his shoulders hopping with sobs. Bad dream, scary noise, who knows.

“Want to sit with me in the rocking chair?” I ask.

“Un huh,” he says through sobs. So I gather him up with his blanket and plop down in the rocking chair in the corner. He rests his head against my chest as he goes back to sleepy-land.

Times like that, my mind wanders like crazy. That’s usually where I get my ideas for columns - while in the shower, standing in line somewhere, or rocking my son to sleep.

Last night though, I my thoughts were filled with the shitty day I had completed. Work was stressful and to political. That’s why I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for things like the baseball strike. The minimum salary is somewhere around $4 billion now, and yet the players nearly went on strike. Must be rough. I’m having trouble feeling your pain, chumps.

Yesterday while watching CNN, they had actually stopped talking about Iraq long enough to talk about Bill Gates. The Forbes Richest Assholes List for 2002 is out. They spent 15 minutes talking about Bill Gates, with an industry expert, and his fortune that was at $65 billion four years ago, but is now only $41 billion. Gee, how will he make ends meet?

Then, of course, there’s Iraq. We’re gonna attack him, we’re not gonna attack him; he’s got nukes, he doesn’t have nukes… The people who run this country just don’t seem to know. Yet I’m somehow suppose to care because it’s on the news each night. Somehow, I just don’t believe that he wants to nuke the US like the Whitehouse wants me to believe. Though, I should be concerned. Two of my cousins and a guy that was in my wedding are in the military. But it’s so easy to get into the train of thought that it’s some country really far away and it doesn’t effect me here in Ohio.

Now, for the fifth time, Saddam says he will let observers in. So maybe all this war talk was grandstanding? Hard to say.

It’s just hard for me to care about any of it. I am underpaid for the industry I work in, yet the baseball players want more money and somehow Bill Gates is poor. Politics are getting thick at work, but there is no international coalition that gives a shit.

But none of that matters. Because last night, somewhere near 2am, my son called for me. He was scared about something and he wanted me. He wanted to sit in the rocking chair with me. I whispered in his ear that everything was going to be OK… and he drifted off to sleep.

None of that other stuff matters. Because last night, for almost five whole minutes, I was a super hero.

Cameras are everywhere these days. On streetlamps, in offices, even at people’s front doors. Too bad there was no camera pointing at President Bush the minute he heard that Iraq was allowing the return of weapons inspectors “without condition.”

It sounds cynical to say that Bush would have been upset at the war being averted for now, but the statements from the Whitehouse seem to confirm that avoiding war is the last thing Bush wanted to do.

Deputy Whitehouse spokesman Scott McLellan says, “This is a tactical step by Iraq in hopes of avoiding strong U.N. Security Council action. As such, it is a tactic that will fail.

So, what we see is the Whitehouse, and presumably Bush, positioning itself to continue the push for the war in Iraq. With Bush’s main crutch and reason for war gone, what tactic will he use next? I assume that the oppression of the Kurds or some slight against the presumably upcoming inspections will be his reason.

Someway or another, he seems deadset on attacking Iraq. I truly would like to know what his real rational is. What is real motivation must be. It doesn’t seem to be greed, because how would he profit financially? It must be that he wants something to carry him to reelection. If we are in the midst of rebuilding the Iraqi society and putting in place a new government, Bush could argue that he should be reelected so that the work can continue with fewer bumps in the road.

That may also tie into his wanting to leave a legacy; to be remembered for something. He’s already got the WTC attacks to play on in his historical repertoire, so if he could add a succesful takedown of a “dictator” and a succesful war, his legacy might be complete.

Maybe we can’t fault him on that front. It seems to be a human condition to try and leave a mark. We all try to let our feelings be known. We want to ensure that our thoughts and experience are heard and impact the events around us. It’s a kind of cosmic graffiti that take part in every day. Maybe then, Bush is just a human suffering from a bad case of hubris and not a warmongering idiot. I haven’t cast my vote yet.