H1N1600 Virus

The H1N1600 virus is found in the vicinity of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, ground zero for political power in the USA and the western world. This disease is more deadly than the bite of a pit viper. Symptoms include a fondness for motorcades, 21 gun salutes and the politics of personal destruction. There is no cure as yet.

It is because of this terrible affliction that a U.S. senator will publicly pray for the death or disability of a colleague so he will be unable to vote, say, for the reform of healthcare system in America or a US congressman will shout "You lie." at the president of the United Staes, as he addresses a joint session of congress. It is this sickness that is causing others to question the actual effectiveness of the American Constitution, that magnificent document that represents a milestone in the efforts of humans to govern themselves.

Aside from the monumental discourtesy and poisonous partisanship, what concerns me is that these leaders of the minority party may actually believe what they are saying! Does the H1N1600 virus also afflict the brain and memory? Were these people not aware of George W. Bush's fiscal profligacy? Did they not vote for 2 wars that were largely unfunded? Did they not participate happily in an historic 3 hour vote on a very costly extension of Medicare, so as to give party leaders extra time to pressure affirmative votes from Republican colleagues? Their hypocrisy today is on a Grand Old Party scale, surely, but there is an enormous difference between then and now.

Today we are just beginning to recover from a disastrous, worldwide recession for which the minority party cannot escape major responsibility. The surplus Mr. Bush inherited is gone. Americans have lost trillions. Pesident Obama is just as much a war time president today as President Bush was then, yet the Republicans are currently refusing to participate in governing the nation in virtually any way. They have been playing the most cynical and negative game possible in the cause of pure politics amd aimed at the destruction of the current occupant of the Oval Office. They want only to regain power so they can return to alienating the world, passing more tax breaks for the rich and pretending that global warming is a fiction of some fractious British scientists. Is there any cause, in a time of war and genuine crisis that could bring them to some kind of adult, responsible participation in government? Maybe a hostile invasion of aliens? Maybe not.Is it time to dust off the nuclear option?