Politics . . . as usual

So the Great Leader called all his chiefs to his house and they met. And talked about the future and how they should rule this great land. And, as usual, nothing got done.

We're getting a bit far away to blame Bush for all the evils of the world, but in this age of "it's not my problem," New Orleans still doesn't have the equipment on site in the event of another major hurricane, there's no more emergency equipment in the Gulf then there was before the Deepwater Horizon blew up, people seem to get poisoned from hamburgers, eggs and greens more than ever before and our freakin' government spends money faster than frisky frat boys at a Nevada cat house. What the heck are they doing in Washington?

Democrats took a beating, but don't hold your breath for the Republicans or Tea Partiers who replaced them to do much better. After all, Republicans held office for years and managed only to bloat the budget, grow government, pass pet projects, undermine minimal oversight and pretty much piss everyone off. Only in the movies, though, does the bully eventually get his ass kicked by some good guy who rides off into the proverbial "life is wonderful now" sunset with the babe.

Eh . . . it's politics, after all, that Washington-based sport where none of the participants seem to understand anything except the desperation they feel when re-election is near. They can't make any real tough decisions because then they won't get re-elected. They can't say anything but the standard 3-second sound bite mush because then they won't get re-elected. They can't really try and change the way things are done because then they won't get picked for any important committees . . . and then won't get re-elected.

Come on, these people get headlines when they tell the press they aren’t going to fly in military jets any more? They shouldn’t have been flying in them in the first place. Get on a damn commercial flight you people. Pay for your own healthcare, freeze your pay, do your own taxes, anything else that might give you a sense of how people are really living. Trust me, if we voters had a chance to lay off a bunch of you we’d do it in a heartbeat. And if any private big business person performed as badly as you have you’d be calling for his head. So you shouldn’t be shocked people are calling for yours.

Clearly the system is broken. . . ok, completely dysfunctional . . . and it has nothing to do with Fox News or MSNBC or anything other than the flaccid impotence of our politicians, who can't even agree on what to disagree. They need a reality check and maybe the elections shook up the status quo a bit. Now I’m a cynic, so I’m not holding my breath, and we may be looking at the modern version of the fall of the Roman Empire.

What’s clear is that half the cars in the convoy have gone off the cliff . . . now we’ll have to see if the others go off as well.