News wise, this is what’s often called the silly season.

Serious news events seem to slow down in the summer. Editors and producers take vacations and front page and top-of-the-hour stories about economics and politics give way to features about the world’s biggest yarn collection, advice on cottage etiquette, and profiles of vendors at the CNE. In the dog days of August, everyone wants to take it easy.

Case in point is U.S. President George W. Bush, who is enjoying four weeks of R-and-R in Texas. (On The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart joked that Bush’s highly publicized good health is due to the fact that he’s eliminated all the stressful parts of being president — namely the work.)

The fact that now might not be the best time to retreat from Washington didn’t hinder the president’s vacation plans. Though the New York Times has just reported that the U.S. is stockpiling weapons in the Middle East in what appears to be preparation for an attack on Iraq, no one, except for a few Bush loyalists, is really buying the claim that Iraq poses an immediate threat.

Even experts such as Scott Ritter, former chief weapons inspector for the United Nations in Iraq, have pointed out that there is no evidence that Baghdad is currently developing weapons of mass destruction. Nor was Bush moved by an offer made earlier this month by the Iraqi government to the U.N. to send its weapons’ inspectors to Baghdad for talks.

Iraq President Saddam Hussein is a brutal and corrupt dictator and the offer might well be “a joke,” as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called it. But if Secretary of State Colin Powell can travel to Brunei for talks with North Korea, why can’t the U.S. government at least attempt to explore some diplomatic channels with another member of the “Axis of Evil” before launching a military attack?

Bush did take a break from his busy golf schedule for a day-long economic forum last week in Waco, Texas that ended up being more of a cheerleading session than a think tank. Commenting on the forum, Texas columnist Molly Ivins noted, “the country is in a world of economic trouble because of an immense tax cut for the rich and twenty years of deregulation. So everyone at (the Waco forum) favoured more tax cuts for the rich and slashing that terrible government regulation that is strangling big business today.”

Between Iraq and Waco, it would all seem so silly, if it weren’t so downright scary.

But for sheer silliness alone, nothing beats what’s been happening in Canadian politics this summer. While the New Democratic Party, and whatever the un-united right is calling itself these days, puzzles over how to make itself relevant again, the Liberals are in the throes of a catfight between supporters of former finance minister Paul Martin and the camp of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

It’s gotten so absurd that cabinet ministers and Members of Parliament have been asked to sign loyalty letters to Chrétien.

I’ve just finished reading a bunch of books about the mean and cliquish behaviour of preteen girls and how in their quest for popularity they backstab, shoot dirty looks, spread rumours and play their friends off one another. With deepest apologies to preteen females, the Liberal caucus is acting like a bunch of 12-year-old girls. And as the Liberals head off to Chicoutimi for their big caucus slumber party, expect more pillow fights and hair-pulling to come.

Meanwhile, the weather — the one subject that can usually be counted on to be innocuous and fluffy — is anything but. Half of Europe is under water while floods in India have claimed close to a thousand lives. Asia is gasping under a thick brown cloud of pollution. Toronto is experiencing record-breaking heat and smog.

In Alberta, where Premier Ralph Klein fought tooth-and-nail against the Kyoto accord for fear that it might hurt the province’s economy, stricken ranchers are being forced to sell their herds at rock-bottom prices because of a drought that has ravaged feed crops.

If all that news weren’t sobering enough, the U.N. just released a report in preparation of its Earth Summit in Johannesburg at the end of the month noting that the 21st Century will be marked by environmental devastation, food and water shortages and widespread poverty.

This silly season is sad enough to make you want to cry.