And Out Come the Wolves
We all knew it couldn't last. Oh sure, there were idealistic types out there that said this would last forever, or at least for a year or so, but eventually the same old things come back and rear their ugly heads and before you know it, everything's back to the way it was. But I think we can make it official: America has returned to its normal, pre-9-11 ways.
How do I know this? Because Democrats and Republicans are at each others throats again, just like the good old days of September 10. Oh sure, there were some extreme partisans who never went with the hand-in-hand solidarity and brotherhood thing we saw between the nation's two major political parties in recent months. These folks continued to assault the opinion pages of America's newspapers to remind everyone that (insert paper here) was still liberal, Al Gore still won the 2000 election, and George W. Bush is still an incompetent president, 80+ percent approval rating or not. For the most part, however, there was still the attitude of bipartisanship rampant on the Hill, as our lawmakers pledged to work together for the common good.
Until they saw how much it was going to cost.
Then came the blame game, and the bickering. Convinced that the nation's economy needed a stimulus, our lawmakers swore to fix what was ailing the country. And then, like they usually do, the conservatives screamed "More tax cuts!" and the liberals screamed "More spending, more handouts!" And it begins again.
Hey, I'm all for making sure the unemployed don't get thrown out in the streets due to some 9-11 related misfortune, but some pundits were pleading to reinstitute the "safety net as a hammock" idea of welfare that was thankfully done away with just a few years back. End result: stimulus bill doesn't pass. The irony here is that the money that now doesn't get spent on this package is just about the amount needed to balance the budget. And the economy seems to be recovering slowly on its own.
Unfortunately, this failure to pass the stimulus package stirred up the Democrat hornet's nest again, and from now until November, we'll be seeing a parade of Democrat lawmakers and candidates screaming to everyone who will listen that the recession that supposedly started in March was caused by the big tax cut that Bush signed in June, as if that makes any sense. That and they will try to downplay the effect 9-11 had on the recession, because when one thinks of 9-11, one of the first things they think of is how effective Bush has been at bolstering the nation's spirit in this time of tragedy, and that won't help Democrats at all. Unfortunately, for all my support for Bush, I do think he's kinda humping the war issue a bit much, and he may start to give the impression that he's keeping the focus on the war only to keep Congress in GOP hands come election time.
So now you have economic difficulties, agitated lawmakers looking to please voters and get re-elected, rumblings and grumblings and signs that all is not so "everybody get together, try to love one another right now" on Capitol Hill. All that was missing from the volatile mix was one thing to make it explode, to turn it all back into the way our government worked (or rather didn't work) before September 11. Enter Enron. A series of corporate blunders, misdeeds, fraudenlent things, etc. turn one of the nation's corporate giants into a bankrupt mess, with thousands of unemployed workers and many more with 401-K's as bone-dry as the Sahara. This Enron collapse made dot-com investors say "wow, that's pretty bad". And the corporate bigwigs who didn't pay the company's taxes and inflated profits and worked with a consulting firm that apparently had an obsession with shredding? They cashed out at the last second before the stock price plummeted, and they will retire multi-billionaires. Actually, no. They'll retire in prison, one can only hope.
However, that's not good enough for some Democrats, most notably one Congressman Henry Waxman, who has taken it upon himself to turn this into an excuse to "Whitewater" President Bush, if I may use "Whitewater" as a verb. In fact, this reeks of Whitewater comparisons. It's "Whitewater 2", starring George W. Bush as Bill Clinton, the popular president who had bad business associations that suddenly become reason for some to scream for impeachment. Also starring Henry Waxman as Al D'Amato, the lawmaker hell-bent on destroying a president he has ideological differences with, and in a special guest role, the Enron VP who killed himself the other day as Vince Foster.
Meanwhile, some say VP Dick Cheney should be impeached because there were Enron folks involved with the "super-secret" energy task force he had last summer, and Cheney won't divulge what happened in these meetings. My question: Wasn't a certain New York senator the head of a similarly "super-secret" health care task force some 8 years ago, and did she not stonewall when asked to give the info discussed in those meetings? Okay, then; doesn't make it right, but I'm saying this isn't the first example of such things happening, and if you want so badly to impeach Vice-President Cheney, then I guess we should investigate Senator Hillary as well. It's only fair. Also, they criticize the close ties Enron had with President Bush because of the large amount of money he got from them during the campaign. This all coming from Democrats who also got pretty substantial dollars from those "evil corporate lords" during their latest campaigns.
The good thing that will result from this is that campaign finance reform, one of my major causes, as well as the major cause of that great American, Senator John McCain, will finally pass and become law. Republicans are of course still crying "unconstitutional" because of their belief that money equals speech, but that's for the courts to decide, and if the judges have brains in their heads, they'll say this is indeed constitutional. Of course, if the Supreme Court rules otherwise, I may very well start to buy that crap about they handed Bush the election. Oh, sorry, wait, that's being divisive and mean-spirited, isn't it? Guess everything really IS back to normal.
How do I know this? Because Democrats and Republicans are at each others throats again, just like the good old days of September 10. Oh sure, there were some extreme partisans who never went with the hand-in-hand solidarity and brotherhood thing we saw between the nation's two major political parties in recent months. These folks continued to assault the opinion pages of America's newspapers to remind everyone that (insert paper here) was still liberal, Al Gore still won the 2000 election, and George W. Bush is still an incompetent president, 80+ percent approval rating or not. For the most part, however, there was still the attitude of bipartisanship rampant on the Hill, as our lawmakers pledged to work together for the common good.
Until they saw how much it was going to cost.
Then came the blame game, and the bickering. Convinced that the nation's economy needed a stimulus, our lawmakers swore to fix what was ailing the country. And then, like they usually do, the conservatives screamed "More tax cuts!" and the liberals screamed "More spending, more handouts!" And it begins again.
Hey, I'm all for making sure the unemployed don't get thrown out in the streets due to some 9-11 related misfortune, but some pundits were pleading to reinstitute the "safety net as a hammock" idea of welfare that was thankfully done away with just a few years back. End result: stimulus bill doesn't pass. The irony here is that the money that now doesn't get spent on this package is just about the amount needed to balance the budget. And the economy seems to be recovering slowly on its own.
Unfortunately, this failure to pass the stimulus package stirred up the Democrat hornet's nest again, and from now until November, we'll be seeing a parade of Democrat lawmakers and candidates screaming to everyone who will listen that the recession that supposedly started in March was caused by the big tax cut that Bush signed in June, as if that makes any sense. That and they will try to downplay the effect 9-11 had on the recession, because when one thinks of 9-11, one of the first things they think of is how effective Bush has been at bolstering the nation's spirit in this time of tragedy, and that won't help Democrats at all. Unfortunately, for all my support for Bush, I do think he's kinda humping the war issue a bit much, and he may start to give the impression that he's keeping the focus on the war only to keep Congress in GOP hands come election time.
So now you have economic difficulties, agitated lawmakers looking to please voters and get re-elected, rumblings and grumblings and signs that all is not so "everybody get together, try to love one another right now" on Capitol Hill. All that was missing from the volatile mix was one thing to make it explode, to turn it all back into the way our government worked (or rather didn't work) before September 11. Enter Enron. A series of corporate blunders, misdeeds, fraudenlent things, etc. turn one of the nation's corporate giants into a bankrupt mess, with thousands of unemployed workers and many more with 401-K's as bone-dry as the Sahara. This Enron collapse made dot-com investors say "wow, that's pretty bad". And the corporate bigwigs who didn't pay the company's taxes and inflated profits and worked with a consulting firm that apparently had an obsession with shredding? They cashed out at the last second before the stock price plummeted, and they will retire multi-billionaires. Actually, no. They'll retire in prison, one can only hope.
However, that's not good enough for some Democrats, most notably one Congressman Henry Waxman, who has taken it upon himself to turn this into an excuse to "Whitewater" President Bush, if I may use "Whitewater" as a verb. In fact, this reeks of Whitewater comparisons. It's "Whitewater 2", starring George W. Bush as Bill Clinton, the popular president who had bad business associations that suddenly become reason for some to scream for impeachment. Also starring Henry Waxman as Al D'Amato, the lawmaker hell-bent on destroying a president he has ideological differences with, and in a special guest role, the Enron VP who killed himself the other day as Vince Foster.
Meanwhile, some say VP Dick Cheney should be impeached because there were Enron folks involved with the "super-secret" energy task force he had last summer, and Cheney won't divulge what happened in these meetings. My question: Wasn't a certain New York senator the head of a similarly "super-secret" health care task force some 8 years ago, and did she not stonewall when asked to give the info discussed in those meetings? Okay, then; doesn't make it right, but I'm saying this isn't the first example of such things happening, and if you want so badly to impeach Vice-President Cheney, then I guess we should investigate Senator Hillary as well. It's only fair. Also, they criticize the close ties Enron had with President Bush because of the large amount of money he got from them during the campaign. This all coming from Democrats who also got pretty substantial dollars from those "evil corporate lords" during their latest campaigns.
The good thing that will result from this is that campaign finance reform, one of my major causes, as well as the major cause of that great American, Senator John McCain, will finally pass and become law. Republicans are of course still crying "unconstitutional" because of their belief that money equals speech, but that's for the courts to decide, and if the judges have brains in their heads, they'll say this is indeed constitutional. Of course, if the Supreme Court rules otherwise, I may very well start to buy that crap about they handed Bush the election. Oh, sorry, wait, that's being divisive and mean-spirited, isn't it? Guess everything really IS back to normal.
Labels: politics
posted by Dave | 11:47 PM
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