Remember a few weeks ago, when
New Jersey and much of the northeast was washed away by Irene? Well, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got it right.
“Our people are suffering now, and they need support now. And they [Congress] can all go down there and get back to work and figure out budget cuts later,” he said then.
Christie, a Republican, was ticked that Congress appeared to be gearing up for a fight over whether disaster aid needs to be offset by spending cuts. If that fight develops over the next few days and weeks, it will be another example of an out-of-touch government and one unable to deal with the realities the country faces now . . . right now. There’s water in the basement . . . roads and houses were washed away . . . lives ruined . . .What are you going to do now? Play politics?
So now it’s weeks later, people around here are still cleaning up, roads are still washed out and people are wondering if disaster funding will remain stalled in the muskeg that is Washington. Don’t look now, but apparently all those that might lead are squabbling over the jobs act. From one looking-at-the-election issue to another. Since Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell framed the debate some time ago by saying the only thing important to him was to defeat Barack Obama in the upcoming election, one has to take everything tossed into the public political spit bucket is, well, so much spit.
On a good day, Washington moves at glacier-like speed. There seems to be less thought about what people actually need and want than there is about scoring political points on some invisible political points scoreboard. (Hey wait . . . could we get a sponsor for that scoreboard and raise some money . . . maybe for hungry kids . . . how about JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs or some other company not doing much public good?)
Gov. Christie wasn’t, in a rare moment for a politician, speaking as a politician. Good for him. People want to believe in their elected officials. They, believe it or not, want to know politicians care about those folks who got them elected in the first place. So Christie, no jacket or tie, standing wondering what the heck Washington was doing was a bit refreshing.
Meanwhile, in Washington, we waited for someone to lead . . . and waited . . . and waited . . .
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