My Daughter Is Trying to Kill Me

But of course, being my daughter and having observed her old man for these many years, she's being very clever about it.

Yesterday she e-mailed me the link to this story on The Washington Post: "Political Maneuvers Delay Bill After Bill In Senate," no doubt calculating that it would send my blood pressure through the roof and probably cause me to have a coronary on the spot.

Ha, ha, though...little does she realize that I have become so inured to the political shenanigans of our elected reprehensives that I just shrugged it off. Better luck next time, Moose!

But all that aside, I was well and truly appalled by the first line of the story: "The Senate went home yesterday for the Fourth of July holiday to face voters, having failed repeatedly to address critical economic issues from skyrocketing gas prices to climate change to the nation's housing crisis."

Having failed repeatedly. Those three words say it all. As I have lamented here often enough, we have a Congress full of blustering ideologues to whom it is more important to be seen as a staunch representative of a particular political party than as a statesman rising above petty politics to do what's best for the nation. I think it's an absolute scandal that these people can noisily feed at the public trough without being held to account for producing anything.

A Senator earns $169,300 per year. That's quite a bit, unless you move in the same circles as Bill Gates or Tom Cruise or Rupert Murdoch. It's significantly more than I - and probably most of you - earn in a year. The difference seems to be that Senators and Representatives don't seem to have to be able to show much in the way of accomplishments in order to keep receiving their checks. If I don't produce the deliverables my customer expects, I lose my job. If Bill Gates had mismanaged Microsoft and lost billions instead of earning them, he'd have lost his job. If Tom Cruise makes a bad movie...well...we'll skip that one. If Rupert Murdoch runs a newspaper into the ground, he just goes out and buys another one and starts over.

But our elected reprehensives seem to be able to escape the consequences of their failures by the simple expedient of blaming it on "them." Democrats blame Republicans. Conservatives blame Liberals. And everybody blames George Bush (who, to be fair, has worked hard to earn his blame).

I wish that our ballots in Congressional elections were able to show what the incumbents have done for the nation. Not just for their narrow home constituencies, but for the nation as a whole. Yes, we expect our elected officials to look out for us. But we are one part of a larger union that needs the united efforts of 50 states (oh, and the District of Columbia) to really serve us as a single nation.

They can't do that.

It's easier to pander to the local voters and kowtow to the lobbyists with the deep pockets than it is to take a hard, honest look at the needs of the nation and do the right thing.

And it's easiest of all to blame someone else for your lack of spine.

Vote Nobody this November. It has to be an improvement.


It could hardly be worse.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo