Here's a piece I hope lots of folks will read. It's about what's been called the fecklessness and parochial behavior of Congress

I have been concerned that there seems to be no pulling together in the Democratic Party, even after Obama was elected, and he being largely responsible for the large Dem majorities in both houses of Congress. Reid and Pelosi seem to take umbrage at their president's wanting them to be team players. As the GOPhers took delight in reminding us for the past eight years, elections have consequences.

These fractious and much too public behaviors by the Dems in Congress are vulnerabilities which are picked up on by all the GOPhers who are looking in every nook and cranny to discredit the Dems. It's not uncommon to read a right wing pundit write about why Dems can't govern, as if they share a gene that renders them helpless in that area of life, governing challenged would be the PC language.

Republicans are good at acknowleging, obeying, falling in line and following their leader, often to a fault as we observed for the past eight years. Democrats seem to prefer arguing within the ranks even publicly, not so much to compete for the position of Drill Instructor but out of a seemingly constitutionally personal need to question authority.

I, as an off the scale cynic when it comes to following the leader without question, understand this behavior. It's essential, necessary and healthy to a point. It becomes a self defeating behavior when it's carried beyond that point. What and where is that point? Clearly it's not as clear as that point below which water freezes, or above which water boils.

One has to fall back on and put trust in the old axioms, 'you will know it when you see it' and ' Taint easy McGee'.

My experience has it that there is a time and place for discussing and a time and place for deciding. Both uses of time and place are necessary and valuable. So what's the problem?

If there is a problem it's likely to be more about the place than the time.













I take issue with the writer's claim that Bush did not have a policy. Yes, it wasn't public policy, it was a policy to feather the nests of his cronies in big business, in the financial institutions and in the military/industrial establishment. He had eight years to do it and he did a great job at it.

He took a handsome surplus and in only a few years turned it into, and left us with, the mess we find ourselves in now.

Leanderthal