Things

We all burnish our records and Tony Blair and George Bush went at the task with a vengeance yesterday. Sadly for them, they failed and no one so much as covered their eyes from the pathetically faint glare. Admissions of mistakes and bad behavior by underlings as well as possible tactical improvements that might have been made in Iraq in no way overcame the great strategic blunder that these men made but cannot admit.

The Prime Minister and the President appeared worn and tired. They’re not empty suits; they simply can no longer fill them out. That Blair is virtually gone is good fortune for the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. Labor leaders are giving their broken man a few months to exit, but Republicans in the U.S. will just have to squirm for the remaining two and half years of the Decider’s term.

You know that I swore that I’d never watch Lou Dobbs rant about illegal immigration on CNN again, but last night under the threat of a lashing from the good wife I was forced to endure his act of righteous indignation as well as the performance art of his nativist Republican Congressional fire breathing guests. Dobbs is a very bright guy, but he’s turning his show into a mirror of FOX’s fair and balanced evening extravaganza.

It’s fair to say that most Americans want the Southern Border with Mexico sealed from the onslaught of illegals crossing into the country. The Senate passed a bill that to some degree does that but which deals humanely with the ten or twelve million illegals that are already in the U.S. The House previously passed its bill that tightens the border more than the Senate’s version but also deals with the illegals in very draconian fashion. There is almost zero chance that a reconciliation of these two bills can be accomplished in conference committee, so there will be no Act for the president to sign this year. And both parties love the prospect of blaming the other.

Dobbs’ nightly scold tells us that the American people want the House bill and that the Senate is giving away the country. While I don’t doubt that a majority of Americans do indeed want the illegals and those who hire them dealt with punitively, a couple of points must be kept in mind. Dobbs is not speaking for all Americans even if those he cites are a larger segment than those not in agreement with him. America is still a Republic and not a pure democracy. We elect the President and the Congress to understand issues and make decisions in the best interest of the nation not to simply take the pulse of the mob and do as directed.

I won’t make a big deal of this, but it is obvious that we expect our representatives to use their best judgment and not just do what we the people say we want at any given moment. Obviously, they face us every two, four or six years, and if they get it wrong too many times, we send them packing to jobs on K Street.

It’s nice to see that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is defending marriage as a contract between one man and one woman and is intent on preventing flag burning as his first priorities in his race for the White House. Thank goodness he’s on the job and not wasting his time with the Iraq War, terrorism, port security, Social Security reform, the trade and budget deficits and all those other minor issues that some of us get diverted by as we read the daily news.

By the way, Al Gore’s doing a great job of rehabilitating himself for a possible presidential run in ’08. I saw the old F. Scott Fitzgerald aphorism about there being no second acts in America somewhere in the last couple of days but after Dick Nixon’s recovery from political death in 1968, I no longer subscribe.

Had enough? Vote Democrat in ’08!

Blog on!

Wild bill