Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief

I have always thought that, when it came to dealing with the war in (on?) Iraq, there were three types of Americans.

1. People who understood that Iraq was not a threat to us;
2. People who bought the Bush administration's malarkey, but who, as time passed, would come to understand that all it was was malarkey;
3. People who aren't bright enough to understand that Rush Limbaugh is a propagandist.

Group 3 will never take a dim view of the Bush administration. It is sad, but that's probably how it is. Group 1 has long been outraged, but out of power. Group 2 could make all the difference, but where is that group right now in the court of public opinion?

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote of the "five stages of grief" that one may go through when a loved one dies. They form the acronym DABDA and read:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

The key here is for Group 2 to go from Denial to Anger. Some heads need to roll, and let's be honest--a Republican Congress is not going to investigate transgressions of a Republican President and his cronies. (I think it safe to say that our current leadership, in the executive and legislative branches in particular, has the ethics and morals of... Hmmm, it's hard to find a good comparison.)

So what will it take for people in Group 2 to get downright angry at the current leadership? Will it ever happen? I don't think that most Americans understand the worldwide damage done by this war; I don't think they ever will. I think they treat American body counts as a minor issue and Iraqi body counts as a trivial abstraction.

Then the really scary question: How many people are in Group 3? If the percentage is near or over 50%, this country is in serious trouble. My assumption has been that none of Groups 1, 2, and 3 constitutes a voting majority...