Holiday Disfunction on Capitol Hill...

For the last few days I have been thinking about the increasingly strange place of the public restroom in modern life.   After all, in a 21^st century heretofore characterized by people wandering around relentlessly focused on the tiny screen of their personal devices – cocooned in pixilated armor that shuts out everyone around them – it is worth considering the public restroom, where we engage in a semi-ritualistic and vaguely unsettling communal excretory function in a dizzying variety of settings, from the lobby restroom of the Fairmont Hotel to the ballpark to the skeeviest gas station restroom along the interstate.  Really; what else is there that’s like that? 

 But no; due to the ongoing toxic cock fight in our nation’s capitol, that profoundly important academic exploration will have to wait.  Instead we’re compelled to offer our opinion and commentary on the dramatic and largely imaginary impending confrontation with the dreaded “fiscal cliff”.    The combination of a snappy nickname with months of breathless hyperbole has everyone on edge; consumer confidence numbers were down over 6 points, which is a pretty significant drop, especially considering that most other economic indicators have been positive since the election.  The media has found this to be nearly irresistible – empty headed and vacuous as they are - and so the cable news shows are filled with quasi-experts of every stripe yammering away and offering their opinion, all accomplishing nothing other than to increase national anxiety. 

The one good thing to come of it is the further unmasking of the republican party, exposing them as the clueless band of obstructionist traitors they seem to have become.   Has there been one good idea to come from the right over this issue?  Is there any indication that they might pursue a different solution than that which they have been mumbling and nattering about for the better part of a year?  Do they pay attention to anything other than the marching orders delivered to them from the corporate bag-men and plutocrats controlling their agenda? 

I have been listening to John Boner for two years and he has had literally nothing of substance to say since the 2010 mid-terms.  For him to stand up in front of a forest of microphones and try to claim that they’re the ones doing all of the compromising and making all of the practical and substantive proposals and Obama is the one responsible for the impasse is laughably predictable because he totally lost control of his bug-eyed, frothing, tea-party infested mob who fervently believe that bringing the government to its knees is their holy and patriotic duty.  And if a few unwashed foreigners, old people and shiftless minorities have to suffer because of it, all the better.

For their part, the democrats continue to trot out two of the most demonstrably ineffective “leaders” in the House and Senate in modern history.  Harry Reid looks like a slightly addled and sleepy assistant professor of 16^th century Slavic languages, like he needs to be dusted off and pointed to the podium on the Senate floor where he gets all worked and says “Gosh darn it” and spouts other such inflammatory rhetoric while being completely ignored by 90% of his colleagues, who would rather play cribbage for cigarettes than listen to his jabbering.

 In the House they depend on Nancy Pelosi, possibly the most polarizing figure in an entire congress of loony, hallucinating reactionaries and partisan hacks.  Everyone hates her, probably even her own staff, and her effectiveness was amply demonstrated during the first half of Obama’s first term when she alienated virtually everyone in the country with her cartoonish liberalism and icy bitchiness.   Even Obama probably doesn’t want to take her calls.

In this muddle of self-interest, corruption and treacherous partisanship is it any wonder that nothing happens?   At some point Obama has looked around and said, “One more round of phone calls and that’s it – we can go off the god damn cliff for all I care anymore”.  

If the tea party rabble wants to bring down the government, Thelma and Louise-ing it off the fiscal cliff seems like a good start so why does anyone expect that any kind of deal can be struck that includes them?   Boner needs to man-up, tell them to kiss his ass, and make a deal.  Seventy-five percent of the country wants a deal that includes some cuts and some tax increases.  What is he afraid of – his legacy?  As it stands, his legacy is that he was a hyper partisan but fundamentally ineffective speaker who, when the country needed him most, ignored what was right to score cheap political points that ended up gaining him nothing.  Wow – how’s that sound for the old tombstone, Johnny?   

 If I was you I might think about doing something drastic and outside the box, like getting together with your soul-brother Mitch McConnell and inviting the little fuehrer, Grover Norquist, along with you.  Drop some ruffies in his scotch and leave him tied to the capitol flagpole with his pants around his ankles as a warning to the delusional tea party knuckleheads that they need to get in line and follow your lead.  That’s what leaders do, Johnny – they lead.  If it takes well reasoned convincing or a public flogging, your job is to cut a deal and move on, not to throw up your hands and head for St. Kitts for the holidays.

Where are the statesmen on The Hill – nodding off over Courvoisier and Cubans down at the club, waiting for someone to tell them to go back and get in their chairs?  How hard can it be?   Have these people ever negotiated anything?   Geez – it’s pathetic.

I’ll bet they have really cool restrooms though…