Everything destructive about American politics — the toxic partisanship, the manufactured outrage, the refusal to compromise — has found the spotlight during Washington’s pantomime on offshore drilling.
Disgust is rising, both with a Congress more interested in gamesmanship than accomplishment and with the relentless cost of gasoline. A national fiscal meltdown only makes it worse, exacerbating worries about jobs, families, futures.
Washington’s response to all that anxiety and anger is one more act of grand political theater, resolving absolutely nothing.
Last week, Democrats rammed through a huge offshore drilling bill without allowing anyone to read it or offer amendments. Among other deficiencies, the bill would provide states with no royalties for drilling and do nothing to expand Virginia’s offshore territory.
Thankfully, HR 6899 has little chance of becoming law, any more than the decision to let the congressional moratorium lapse will actually encourage offshore drilling. Neither was ever the point. The goal was instead to give Democrats a useful legislative diversion to employ on restive voters who believe that offshore drilling will solve the nation’s energy woes.
It can’t, of course. But that doesn’t make offshore drilling any less potent a campaign issue in an election less than two months away.
As readers know, this page opposes drilling off the shore of Virginia because it wouldn’t provide significant new fuel, would complicate Navy training and poses too much risk to the environment.
Even so, Congress’ behavior — passing an offshore drilling bill with no chance of encouraging offshore drilling, and without allowing lawmakers to amend it — represents precisely the kind of cynical politics that Americans have come to expect from Washington. The same goes for ending a congressional moratorium, a decision that comes so late that the next administration will make all the decisions.
Defensive Democrats argue that they are merely doing the same thing Republicans did when they had the majority. That’s absolutely right, and absolutely irrelevant. Pointing out the sins of your predecessors is like an argument over who started a fight; nobody listens, and it gets you not one punch closer to ending it.
Lawmakers and aides say that Washington has never been worse than it is today, has never been more filled with enmity and futility. Republicans and Democrats alike deserve blame for allowing vituperation and oversimplification to guide the way they talk to each other and make decisions.
The remedy, of course, is to demand better of the actors we send to Washington and to Richmond and to City Hall. To insist that they put the interests of people in the audience before contributors, before lobbyists, before their friends in the anger-driven media.
The curtain rises again on Nov. 4.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
My observations of the Federal Government
Anytime I see a Congressman/woman, Senator, etc., on TV or hear one on the radio...I hear "Dueling Banjo's" in the background and picture that in-bred kid sitting on the porch plucking away on a banjo.
In short - we're doomed unless we get more average Americans in Washington.
and how do we do that?
"The remedy, of course, is to demand better of the actors we send to Washington and to Richmond and to City Hall."
We elect them thinking they have our best interest at heart and we then complain when they do something that we don't like. What we don't do is constantly stay in touch with them regarding issues either by phone or mail, before voteing time comes around. We write on blogs, but we don't write the individual. Why is that?
Perhaps our politicians should read a few things
In particular, the Declaration of Independence, in particular the following excerpt:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.