Tom D'Antoni: Candidates In Pissing Contest as Washington Burns
This week the U.S. Senate Democrats caved in again....twice. Once on re-authorizing illegal domestic spying by giving immunity to the Telcos' past criminal offenses. Next on the spare change hand-out which patronizes most of America.
That was bad enough. Bad enough to make one lose further faith in the Congressional Democrats who voted with Bush. It another example of the Democrats' litany of "we want to work with the Republicans and stop the partisan bickering," in action. In fact, 99% of the partisan bickering has come from the Republicans.
What's worse is that Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were absent from duty while this was going on, missing both votes and engaging in a juvenile pissing contest while campaigning.
Amidst the pissing, they had a few things to say about what they would do if elected. Back when they were running for Senate, they also told voters what they would do. Unfortunately, they did not promise those who voted to elect them to Congress that they would miss two of the most important votes of the year by talking smack at each other while running for President.
The media, needing no excuses to ignore substantive issues, loves a fight. Therefore, the two votes that Clinton and Obama missed were also missed by most of the media, or buried so far down that they bumped up against the day's Brittney Spears incident.
Since they didn't make the votes, they obviously couldn't talk about the issues, thereby ignoring the issues. Vicious cycle isn't it?
All this is supposed to make us have faith that either one of them can bring us change? For a dollar, maybe.
The Dems know they have us progressives by the balls. We have nowhere else to go. We're not going to allow another Republican to be elected, or to steal another election. There's no alternative. And Mayor Billionberg won't get us.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Who is to say that, even with a Democratic President and Congress, what needs to get done WILL get done? I'll believe it when I see it and all I see is the Republican in the White House having his agenda furthered by a Democratic Congress, in the face of his overwhelming unpopularity in America.
To hope that the candidates will stop pissing on each other and begin to deal with their responsibilities as United States Senators and as the future President, is about the same as hoping you'll win PowerBall. And yet we go back and play again and again. That is our strength and our folly.