Profiles in Cower-age
Hardly a day goes by that I don’t wonder what I was doing last year in screaming so loudly, and really for the first time in my life, actually working (and I mean making phone calls to key House districts and, on election day, actually walking precincts in a key district in Pennsylvania, 100 miles from my house) trying to get Democrats elected to Congress. In the end… why? Let’s just say it will be an even colder day in hell before I get off my own tush to help Democrats again.
Certainly I didn’t work so hard so a “Democratic” led Congress could send Bush yet another blank check for war funding– hundreds of billions of more unchecked spending, without even a suggestion of limitation or control of the Iraq or Afghanistan war projects. And not so that a bill repealing all possible accountability for private sector actors who cooperated in blatantly illegal and unconstitutional eavesdropping on American citizens might be liable for it would be championed by Harry Reid of all people. Or to
give up on real reform for alternative minimum tax relief because billionaires might have to pay more taxes.
Boo hoo… a Democratic majority in both houses that can’t get anything done– and instead of scoring points (the way Newt did in minority) by pointing to the outrageous things the opposition stands for and the dirty tactics they are using… the Dems prefer caving on everything, and losing… for losing. And giving the most unpopular president of our time… everything he wants.
The fact is, everyone in our system of checks and balances has a veto… if they want it. All either the House or Senate has to do… is absolutely nothing. Refuse to bring funding bills to the floor, unless appropriate compromises are reached. Take some chances, darn it! The American people have shown time and time again that they respect guts– even in the service of evil and plutocracy (see “Republican Party, the”). But nooooo!!!! All the Democrats want to do is get this messiness of the table so they can talk about health care (as if they could do anything about that either!)
The only answer I can think of is something IIRC digby once suggested, perhaps tongue in cheek, perhaps not: the rest of us will just have to hire our own lobbyists to bribe members of Congress with meals, junkets and sex (just like corporate America does) to get its members to actually pass things in the public interest. Otherwise… this ongoing exercise in watching the Democrats continue to serve as the Bush junior auxiliary is just going to get ever more tiring.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
[…] The American Street: Certainly I didn’t work so hard so a “Democratic” led Congress could send Bush yet another blank check for war funding– hundreds of billions of more unchecked spending, without even a suggestion of limitation or control of the Iraq or Afghanistan war projects. And not so that a bill repealing all possible accountability for private sector actors who cooperated in blatantly illegal and unconstitutional eavesdropping on American citizens might be liable for it would be championed by Harry Reid of all people. Or to give up on real reform for alternative minimum tax relief because billionaires might have to pay more taxes. […]