Politics As A Double Negative

As the debate over deficit reduction and debt ceiling drags on, I've drawn a couple of conclusions from recent reading.  Let me try them out on you.

 Let me address the members of congress who got there on the strength of tea party support first.  The more I see of them and listen to them the more I am convinced none of them could have gotten elected left to their own devices. Without tea party support they had nothing to offer against their opponents, especially other Republicans, except they were smart enough to know capitalizing on tea party issues could do the job.

For some it didn't work.  Thank heavens.  For too many others it did.  I sense they haven't a clue about how government works.  I also think they are deluded if they really believe they were elected to do the very thing they were to be against,  diminishing this country to the level of Europe. That's what their refusal to compromise on these debates is doing.  And, it's what Obama wants - for us to be on an equal level with Europe and no longer the leader that had been our destiny.  They were not elected to be obstructionists, but to find solutions.  The country was to come first, not ideology!

The more moderate Republicans are afraid of being 'primaried' by the likes of Grover Norquist who runs around with his 'pledges', threatening to run candidates against them if they don't sign.  Any politician who does is foolish.   Norquist is a self-appointed arbiter of what's good for all of us. Why anyone pays him any attention is beyond me but enough do and they fear him.

Hand in glove with all this, and my second theory, is the idea that public office should not be any one's career goal.  It wasn't intended that way, yet when I look at how office holders prostitute themselves to rise in the leadership ranks turns my stomach.

When George Nethercutt wrote recently about the climb to leadership, he had this to say.

When a member chooses a career path to congressional leadership, a member's independence is often compromised in favor of the leadership team, and the member's constituents are sometimes left behind.

Could anything be more damning?  I think not.  It gives you a pretty good idea what congressional leadership is all about.  Themselves.  What about the country?  What country.  Nothing exists outside of Washington.  Except the rest of the world.

Maybe, as has been suggested in times of frustration about the middle east,  we should build a fence around them so they can't get out and leave them to their own devices.

We, the people would have to do it though.  Those folks in Washington can't even get a secure one build along our border!

Pass the debt ceiling!  The next congress isn't beholden to anything the current one does anyway.  The deficit can't be fixed without a budget.  There is no budget.  Continuing resolutions do nothing more than extend spending at current levels and solves nothing.

Do I sound angry?  I am.  Thoroughly fed up with all the posturing and politicking on all sides including the President.

They all need to grow up and start thinking about the country as a whole.  And so do we, the voters, because we're the ones who put them in office and keep them there.

Whatever happened to "duty, honor, country"?  Especially country.  It starts with a 'C'.  Not an 'R' or a 'D'.