Congress Interrupted

I was watching Charlie Rose yesterday and I like him an awful lot, but he interrupts his guests even more than Mike and Merv put together, and that is saying something. His over interrupted guest was New York Congressional Representative Charles Rangel who matched Charlie interruption for interruption. He said some things to Charlie that intrigued me, so I went to Mr. Rangel's site to see his voting record. I do not entirely agree with him on every issue, but he is certainly credible, making his interview comments worth investigating. What he said was that when the Democrats put forth an idea for discussion, the Republicans argue automatically, filibustering whether they like the idea or not. He said it is common knowledge. It is an intentional slow down to see that nothing gets done by Democrats in Congress until the election. Of course, this makes the Democrats look like they are doing nothing, despite their slight majority.

How pointless. Do they really think the American people would not mind seeing their hard-earned tax dollars spent in such a fashion? We pay their exorbitant salaries, do we not? When they are working to pass laws or confirm presidential nominees, whether we agree with the positions they take or not, they are at least doing the job for which they were elected. But this? These are very expensive sophomoric antics that cheapen the nation these individuals are sworn to serve and the Constitution they vowed to protect. Congress, the very body which formed the most revered government in the world at one time is now reduced to working very hard at doing nothing just to fool the voters into thinking one side is even worse than the other. How sad. How ridiculously sad.

We have already lost the respect of the world through inferior leadership, war mongering, ecumenical intimidation, scandal, greed, and stupidity. We have behaved like spoiled, arrogant, misbehaving children with our military leaders and contractors alike taking their lead from our current administration as though they have that right, disrespecting the people in the countries they invade as Bush disrespects the American people; but when we do it abroad, we put our soldiers' lives at risk.