We — the people of United States of America — are in big trouble.
Not from terrorists. Not from illegal immigration. Not from rising crime. Not even from the poverty / wealth gaps or the partisan divides.
To one degree or another, they’re all important issues that unfortunately require leadership — real leaders — but in this terribly torn and dangerous period, we are led instead by a bunch of kindergarten-level whiners.
For instance:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday accused Bill Clinton of making “flatly false” claims that the Bush administration didn’t lift a finger to stop terrorism before the 9/11 attacks.
“What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years,” Rice added.
Depending upon your seat and section on the sidelines, this translates to either, “we were just as good” or “we were just as bad”.
Of course, she was responding to Bill Clinton’s “I did not drop the ball on terrorism” of last week…. who was in turn responding to “The Path to 9/11″… all of which would be funny if taking place during Circle Time, but is abominable for a country of our stature.
Politics has turned into a winner take all finger-pointing game, and while I’m inclined to put a lot of this off on the coming election, it didn’t start last month. The levees had just been breached when people started saying it was “all Bush’s fault”… as ridiculous a charge as I’ve ever seen.
There was blame enough for everybody — then and now. Nothing happens in a vacuum; it takes the misadventures of many to set the stage for disasters such as those we’ve witnessed over the last six years. Every administration that has served during my lifetime has been profoundly affected by the actions and decisions made by those who came before them, and this ludicrous attempt to slice time into bite-sized pieces is beyond embarrassing.
Is there anybody with enough intestinal fortitude to step up and take some personal responsibility? I already know it won’t be Dick Cheney, who’s still spewing the same graham-crackers-and-milk mush about Saddam Hussein and Iraq… but surely there’s an adult someplace?
Anybody?
If this is the best we’ve got, we’re done. Stick a fork in us.
Well said, Polimom. I am in despair about the leadership of this country and about the people who keep voting them into office. Pettiness, selfishness, and greed rule the day. Nobody considers the welfare of future generations. “Other people children” don’t matter, and, of course, it is always other people’s children who fight the wars. There is no mature consideration of the long-term consequences of actions taken. The only concern is getting through the next political cycle as a winner. This leaves our nation, the world, and history as the big losers. No amount of obfuscation by the fawning commentators on the lapdog faux news network will be able to obscure that in the long run. But short term, it seems to work like a charm, time and time again. That speaks volumes about the voting public. Thus, my despair…
Well, one of the less quoted parts of Clinton’s comments: “I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden.”
For which, of course, he’s being criticed (“See! He failed!”)
So, Poli, how would you go about solving this? Remember that we have got to vote for someone from a slate of candidates we choose, and that those who get put on the slate are those who tend to draw attention – either because they are already there, or they have some sort of angle (read: Kinky Friedman, Ross Perot, Jesse Ventura), or they are charismatic (read: Bill Clinton.) We chose to eliminate the smoke-filled room (which would have kept Carter, Clinton and Dubya out of the White House.) We gave ourselves the power – but along with power comes responsibility, and that is a mantle we as a society have not assumed.
Assuming that what we *don’t* want is a ruling class (which is part of the reason behind the term-limits movement), we have got to find someway to weed out those who can win a popularity contest, but can’t govern worth a damn.
Yeah, I’ll agree that the antics of our political leadership seem silly, but that is what we have saddled ourselves with.
BTW, did anyone else notice that this whole ‘incident’ seemed somewhat contrived, as if WJC walked into that studio intending to have a blow up, and that the Democrats were quick to make it part of their talking points (as was the GOP, though slightly farther behind)?
Actually, those smoke-filled rooms are looking better and better…
~EdT.
John – yes, I did hear that, and I’ll give WJC credit – he has, to an extent, stepped up to the plate and accepted responsibility. I’ll maintain that, outside of a few authors, we as a society had a failure of imagination – just as we couldn’t believe that the Japanese would attack us without a formal declaration of war back in 1941, just as we couldn’t believe that *anyone* would do what Hitler & Co. did in Auchwitz and other such places, we simply wouldn’t allow ourselves to think that Bin Laden and AQ would turn commercial jetliners into cruise missiles. After all, we didn’t have to worry about AQ – we have two big bodies of water called “oceans” to protect us. Terrorism is something that crack-pots who have spent waaay too much time reading “Soldier of Fortune” and reading about UFO aliens engage in.
That one cost us dear – and since our government reflects our priorities (or at least that is how it goes in theory), I am not surprised that they missed the signs.
~EdT.
Oh, and while we are at it – this ongoing issue with leaks coming out of the intelligence community makes me wonder if the professional government folks are involved in this schoolyard squabble.
Actually, this is a rhetorical statement: it has been apparent pretty much from the get-go that the “professional” bureaucrats have been at odds with the elected officials – as if the bureaucrats are saying “how DARE those elected bumpkins tell us what policy is? After all WE MAKE THE POLICY AROUND HERE!!!!!”
I think the real question is how does our government manage to function at all in such an atomosphere, and why would anyone in their right mind ever want to run for office?
~EdT.
As John said — Clinton did indeed say that he tried and missed… although I’m slightly more put out by the spin that’s gone into Somalia. (link here to 1993).
Ed — I haven’t got a clue about what could be done to bring the kiddies back in from recess at this point. I can feel myself withdrawing further every day from the entire catastrophe of this crop of politicians.
Ed said:
That’s MUCH of what’s behind this pathetic display of juvenile antics.
My preference is starting to skew toward a full replacement; throw the bums out across the board.
A week or two ago, Tucker Carlson brought up a good point about our so called outrage against Congress. He noted that Congress consistently rates low in opnion polls near elections, but that a vast majority of those up for election get back in every time. Our biggest turn over in Congress is from people deciding not to run. And when people who are not satisfied with the performance of Congress as a whole, are asked about their own Representative, they tend to give that person a good rating. So all over the country, it is someone else’s horrible guy messing things up, never your own. His point eventually was that even if the Dems take back both the House and Senate this year, most of the people in those houses will still be the same people there now, so it would be silly to think that Congress would suddenly redeem itself without very many new people.
I don’t have any additional information for all of you – I actually get most of my news and outside perspectives from reading this blog and everybody’s comments. I just have this naive wish that people would realize that pointing the finger and figuring out who’s to blame doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t matter who’s fault it is. We’re in this mess. Now let’s fix it.
Ed, you beat me to answering you. Ed said – Assuming that what we *don’t* want is a ruling class (which is part of the reason behind the term-limits movement), we have got to find someway to weed out those who can win a popularity contest, but can’t govern worth a damn.
I think the worse problems are not the so much the people that we elect but the people we hire, the bureaucrats . Remember, the Democrats’ latest GRWC (Great Right-Wing Conspiracy) wasn’t a Republican or Democrat. He was a government lifer who could care less who is in power, just past the budget on time so he can get his bloated check that great Republican, Fmr. Deputy Secretary Of State Armitage: I Was The Source Of The CIA Leak… The news of the initial outing of Plame by Armitage made it “Plame” out on the Dems..
Children, whiners and Loafers. Washington D.C. is full of them.
Polimom said:
Sorry, no can do. The professional bureaucrats are a significant part of the whole brouhaha, and they are essentially *untouchable*. Besides, as Lazarus points out, the American Peepul, while having a very low opinion of Congresscritters as a whole (somewhere between Antarean slime-worms and used-car salesmen), they seem to like their own – at least well enough to re-elect them every two years!
No, I think this is going to take something more fundamental – a willingness by those same American Peepul to belly up to the bar, step up to the plate – and a whole bunch of other well-worn cliches – and take responsibility for their own governance. It isn’t about the money, hard or soft. It isn’t about who gets more face time on the air, or in the scandalsheets. The *only* people who have a say in who governs this country (and how it is governed) are those who go out and vote – and those who don’t, and effectively say “eh?” to the whole process.
~EdT.
Ed and Lazarus —
As much as I want to just pull the covers over my head and hide (i.e. give up), I do actually agree. We have to be responsible for our own governance.
So how do we do that, when we have a two-party system that is set up to maintain itself as the only options? I can go vote all day long… but if I’m forced to choose between one bozo or his negative image, where’s the improvement?
And Jess — I SOOOO agree with you. We can beat the “blame” drums until our hands fall off, but it won’t fix a single thing.
KEWL – A preview box!! We should take up a donation to help Polimpm out on the over-charge!!