Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Governance vs. Electioneering

Governance turns out to be tough stuff and Obama must now be asking himself, "why in heaven's name did I do this to myself?" We all know that Congress avoids taking on governance at all costs. Their normal routine, when presented with evidence of a problem, is to pass some piece of legislation, preferably one involving the spending of public money, and then to move on, as in, "alright, we've solved the problem of poverty in America, what's next?"
Having worked within government for a few years, and studying it for several decades, one thing became clear. Congress has the attention span of a gnat. So, governance, or in their case, oversight, gets short shrift. Maybe, they just don't know enough; they're not, after all, the brightest lights on the planet. But they also seem incapable of focusing on big problems like war, poverty, health care, fiscal meltdowns, and even outright thievery by banking executives, for more than a few days at a time, before changing the subject.
But we expected a bit more from our President. He is, after all, a very smart man, and a highly principled one (also a foreign notion in Congress). He promised us the moon, and hasn't yet delivered, despite the Nobel award vote of confidence.
It is true that he received from President Doofus, a giant platter of dung--two wars, both of which bore more than a passing resemblance to Vietnam, and a wrecked economy, caused by Bush, Congress, Clinton, and criminal CEO's.
His promises on health care reform may have been just silly, given the health insurance industry's death grip on Congress. I mean, what could have been worse--trying to extract the guns from a bunch of cold dead republican hands???
It's just possible that he should have avoided mention of health care reform during his campaign. He probably could have won by simply not being Bush, given his opposition, the Bush-Lite and Barbarella Barbie team. Maybe the next time, a democrat even thinks about reforming the health care financing system in this country, he should adopt a stealth campaign. Build up his credentials by accomplishing a few things the public likes, then quietly introduce a law that "tweaks" the insurance system by introducing a single payer for Democrats only.
Try to get it passed during some twilight hour period, when republicans are too drunk or strung out on drugs to notice.
But now, instead of following through on his promise to Gays, and his promises to all of us to rid the Nation of corrupt banking system CEO's and their hired guns, he's picking a fight with Fox??? I know, I know. Fox is a nasty piece of business, and yes, they are an enemy of sorts. But they're not Al Qaida. They're not even Al Jazeera. It seems to me they are best left alone, even to simply ignoring them altogether. Glenn Beck is nuts, Rush is a fat dopehead, and the republicans deserve them. They are the perfect representation of what republicans stand for now. Leave them to their own devils. Let's get on with the governance thing, Barack.
And elsewhere, Bob Dole objected to having the Dems agree with him. He wants to go back to the folks what brung him--Rush, Glenn and the Christian Taliban. Have at it Bobby.

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