Posted by
Bill Crawford on Monday, August 08, 2011 8:45:28 PM
It's been two years now, and the popular revolt has not lost any momentum. And why should it? The President and his policies are not about to take a Clinton triangulation turn any time soon.
The outsider would take note that we have all graduated to a higher plane. We are now "terrorists", "the new Taliban" and that old perennial, "hostage takers". At least the critics have moved on from the derogatory gay sexual references.
In the brave new world, where Obama is getting a new re-election hurdle to jump every week, the Tea people are at the top of his long list of excuses for many things. Nearing a double dip recession? Oh, seasonal changes. The Japanese tsunami. The greedheads on Wall Street. Those obstructionist Republicans in the House. The default negotiations. That's right: the only thing the President sees in the mirror is solutions. If we would only spend more on education and infrastructure.
The S&P downgrade to AA+? The idiots were off in their calculations by $2 trillion. If we only had reasonable people to negotiate with, we could have raised taxes (er, sorry, 'provided a balanced solution') to get to a $4 trillion package and we would still be top notch. Oh yeah? You could have found a couple of trillion by only taxing the "millionaires and billionaires"? There would have been no political repercussions for that? Are you nuts?
Truth be told, I can understand the hard feelings. One side is negotiating with a fallback position- nobody is going to threaten John Kerry's job if he blinks first with us- they'll moan and then vote for him anyway. The seventy-plus Congressional freshmen that arrived in D.C. this year have no such luxury. If they back down from why they were sent there, they have been told in no uncertain terms that in 2012, they will have a primary challenger that is better funded than they are. They don't have a choice.
But when it comes down to it, this is all about personal responsibility. All of you out there who have a problem with these elected officials, they are only your secondary problem. Your primary problem is...me.
I am one of the crown outside the beltway, looking and and holding the ejection seat button in hand. This is a representative democracy, and they are just the messenger. You don't like this? You had better find a way to shut me up.