A Washington Where Every Day Is Election Day

Far and away, the best part of the speech was President Obama’s admonishment towards the behavior of Washington fat cats and insiders. “But what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day.” Is this some kind of twisted joke? This, from the man who’s never, ever stopped campaigning? Hell, his whole State of the Union read like a campaign speech.

When he is the sitting president how can he campaign against the establishment? How can a President be so unaware his scathing criticism of the political atmosphere in the country’s capitol would de facto have to include him? Am I insane, or was he not in Washington D.C. for the last year (not to mention his time as a Senator)? How is he, and his political party that dominates two branches of the federal government, not responsible for the tone in Washington?

Stop the insider tricks and back room scheming? Most of the negotiations for the current health care debacle happened behind closed doors. Even before the citizens of Massachusetts made sure there was no way the current health care bill would ever get through the Senate again, I think there was a damn good chance it was never going to make it out of committee anyway. Why is that? Because the monstrosity the DNC leadership is trying to cobble together cannot not stand the light of day, and all those legislators up for re-election knew it.

“I’m calling on Congress to publish all earmark requests on a single website before there’s a vote so that the American people can see how their money is being spent.” Publish earmarks on the Internet? Great idea! For a dry run, why not start with all the earmarks in the stimulus bill? The earmarks in the first stimulus bill (and remember, we were promised a bill without earmarks) were over a thousand. I’m sure they don’t want anyone reading those. And I’m equally sure this potentially good idea is simply lip service to an ideal.