Thursday, September 20, 2007

Sick and Tired of Waste-Our-Time-And-Money Bills and Resolutions

I'm sick and tired of how Congress wastes our time and money between pork-barrel spending and "press release" bills and resolutions that do nothing. The current resolution that has me upset was introduced by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). It's a reaction to the anti-General Petraeus ad run in the New York Times by MoveOn.org. The resolution is a "Congress supports our troops" message while also being an attack on MoveOn.org. In short, it's a move by Republicans to make Democrats choose between "I don't support our troops." and "I'm not liberal enough." The big news? Sen. Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Dodd (D-CT) both "hate our troops", Sen. Biden (D-DE) "doesn't care enough to vote at all", and Sen Obama (D-IL) "won't say whether he's not liberal enough or if he hates our troops." Perhaps it's both.

5 comments:

Sean said...

i don't think that congress people voting for or against this kind of resolution says anything about how they feel about our troops. many of the democrats honestly feel that petraeus "cooked the books" with his report, even as unlikely as that seems with what was actually in the report. so for that group the ad wasn't demeaning at all - it was more or less truthful. it's just a different take on what is best for the u.s. and our troops. i'd rather the congress move on (pardon the pun) and get to doing work that will actually produce something of worth for the country. these kinds of resolutions are a waste of time that produce nothing.

quizwedge said...

I realize that the Democratic Senators don't really hate our troops... I was speaking tongue-in-cheek due to the craziness of the resolution.

Sean said...

but that's just the thing, it doesn't matter if you're joking or not on this issue. the idea is already out there and by actually expressing it either seriously or not your encouraging the idea that an elected official's patriotism is connected to how they vote.

i don't mean to go off on this, but it's just something i've grown to hate. all elected officials are patriotic - that's why they ran for office in the first place. how that patriotism is worked out may or may not be the same way i understand patriotism, but they're still patriotic.

Anonymous said...

The problem is politics is as much theater as serious business. Ed Koch knew this as mayor of New York, which was why he spent almost every day in a press conference expressing his "outrage" over something. When he expressed it, it was cathartic to the city and the people could go on with their lives.

Same here. It also explains the popularity of Talk Show (Liberal and Conservative) hosts who are clearly illogical and generally add nothing to the debate. But they DO provide theater and venting for their followers.

Sean said...

Anonymous makes some good points.