A Good Faith Effort by President Obama and Representative Boehner

Golf, a wonderful thing, held great political hope for me for a while. When President Obama and Rep. Boehner got together on the links, I thought perhaps a miracle was in order. It was cordial, the participants seemed to have a good time, no untoward stories came out of it. It raised my hopes for possible compromise in a world where hard-headedness seems to become a political value. And, it didn’t stop there. The President and the leader of the Republican party continued to meet, though not as publicized as the golf outing. They appeared to be serious men, realizing it was pretty much up to them to work through this morass of intolerance and name calling that we call governance today. They worked long and hard and compromised in the way that would have pleased the founding fathers who history as recorded as profound workers towards compromise. They talked they compromised they took each other seriously and produced a piece of work that both felt confident could fly and push pass our current government impasse. [A good piece about their meetings was reported in a recent Time magazine.]

And then they shared the efforts to the respective parties. Their boneheaded constituents in both parties said, screw it; our particular ideologies and posturing are far more important than fixing problems; to hell with your compromise. It isn’t even ideology that drives many of them, they just want to win completely on their own terms and to hell with any others positions but their own; and to confound their stupidly they believe they have their people mandates to do so.

Both parties gave their leaders the shaft, and ultimately it is the American people who are shafted. I am at a loss to explain how things have gotten to such a mess. Who in blazes are these people who were elected to be public servants? They are serving no one. Though a number of them have figured out it’s a really good way to make personal fortunes. But that is fodder for another article.

I truly believe there are a number of good and serious candidates and politicians in both parties. But they cannot or will not hold firm to their ideals in order to garner their own parties support. This congress I believe will go down and having the most extreme and idiotic freshman class in history. And we will suffer for it.