A Dash of Black, A Pinch of White, and a Whole Lot of Gray

I don't like to take up too much time and space with these thoughts of mine. They rush through my head pretty quickly, anyway, and it's all I can do to keep up with them. But it's been a busy week upstairs and it's time to flush some things out.

Let's start with a new political poll featured this past Sunday in my local paper, the wondrous Des Moines Register. Of course it features the latest presidential preferences of likely voters, it's required; but it also lists the issues on the minds of those same voters. The top 5 issues among Democrats were the war in Iraq (46%), relations with other countries (37%), health care and health insurance (35%), and in a tie with 33% the nation's long-term debt, national security, and the economy and jobs. Republicans shared two of those issues; their top five were terrorism (40%), national security (38%), faith and values (29%), the war in Iraq (28%), and immigration (27%). I was interested to see that abortion and gay marriage didn't make the top 5 in either party; especially considering how much attention those issues will get when the general election campaign is upon us. We love our wedge issues. Abortion and gay marriage came in 18th and 19th respectively with Democrats. They were understandably higher with Republicans, 6th and 8th. But Republicans did put "faith and values" (whatever that means) at number three overall.

Aside from the labels the pollsters came up with (see "faith and values") I found it most interesting to look at top Republican issues; and one pairing of issues in particular. Republicans named "Terrorism" as their top issue. Yet they place "Relations with other countries" - which was #2 on the Democrats' list - at #12. Does anyone else see a major problem with this? How is it we are supposed to fight terrorism without building strong relations with other countries? Can we connect some dots here? I know that faith and values will get God on our side, but it might help to get a few other earthly partners in this effort. Let's put this on a very local level. If you have a neighbor who's an arrogant prick and treats all the other neighbors with contempt, how likely are you to keep an eye on his house when he's out of town? Even if you're part of the Neighborhood Watch effort, where does his house fit on the priority list? Exactly. But this is a symptom of our general short-sightedness as a collective people, our willingness to buy into the anti-French sentiment because it makes us sound tough and cool; we're loners out in the wild west, fighting dangerous heathens. Well, folks, even John Wayne died.

So I give kudos to the Democrats who placed "Relations with other countries" at #2 and "Terrorism" at #7; it's almost as though you're saying that terrorism is a symptom of other, larger concerns. Something to think about, I guess.

Speaking of kudos to Democrats, how about those Democrats in Washington? They've decided to remove the troop-withdrawal deadline from the Iraq spending bill and are also failing on almost all of their promised ethics reform. What a great party.

That's right, after meeting with the White House they've announced that the compromise bill will not include a deadline to begin withdrawing our troops from Iraq. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed to vote against the measure. She also vowed to put a timeline for withdrawing troops into the Iraq spending measure. Other Democrats in leadership have vowed that any future Iraq financing measure will include a timeline. Really? Is there a wolf attacking your sheep? But I guess they had no choice this time; they didn't want to be seen as not caring about the troops. Will someone explain to me how that's going to change with subsequent bills? Isn't that always a sound bite-attack they are going to face?

The Democrats did manage, though, to include in the spending measure an increase in the federal minimum wage, increased funding for veterans' health care, and increased funding for childrens' health care and other domestic programs. So there we have the gray. It's a sticky game, this politics.

But before we get too excited about anything great happening in Washington, it appears the party that promised to clean up the ethics mess is failing. They failed to double the current one year lobbying ban on former lawmakers. They couldn't even get members of their own party to support the measure. My favorite is Rep. Michael E. Capuano, a Massachusetts Democrat. He opposed the "revolving door" ban on lobbying by former members of Congress saying, "I made a career change 20 years ago to be a full-time elected official. I am no longer qualified to be a tax attorney. It is like saying to people, 'Please, come into public service, give it your all, and when you are done you are completely unqualified for anything else.'" WHAT? Who is this idiot? Really? It's not like saying that at all, actually. How stupid does he think the American people are? Is anyone else insulted by such a remark?

Also destined to die:
1. A measure that would require lobbysists to report "bundled" contributions - those that are collected and delivered to
candidates. Seems like a sensible measure that wouldn't really require a whole lot of work.
2. The creation of an independent, ethichs watchdog to monitor Congress' compliance with ethics rules. No, we
certainly don't need that. They do a fine job of following their own rules without anyone getting in the way.

Oh it's a circus in Washington, that's for sure. And I don't think I want it any other way. Adding to my amusement this morning is a story that our government apparently wants to sue OPEC because of the high fuel costs we are all facing; it must be their fault, they are brown. Right? There's no way that the CEOs of oil companies / big time political contributors could have anything to do with high gas prices. It's time for public financing of elections.

President Dwight Eisenhower ( a Republican and a decorated General, for those of you who slept in history class) warned of the military-industrial complex. I think today's Washington would scare him to death, Republicans and Democrats alike.

On a lighter note, the new Wilco album, Sky Blue Sky, is glorious. Check it out.