Bayh should be applauded...

Senator Evan Bayh quit Washington D.C. today, did ya hear? Senator Evan Bayh, flanked by his wife and twin boys, quit Washington D.C. today. If you are an American today, you should be filled with pride right now. Not because Bayh quit, but because it turns out that he might be one of the few in Congress these days that should have stayed. He quit Washington today for the same reasons that the American people are quitting Washington. He’s had enough, enough of the partisanship and backroom dealing that pervades almost every bill that passes through the Houses. He’s had enough of being told what to do. He’s had enough of the idea that a backbone was a liability.
It is the exemplification of the old adage that you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. And Senator Bayh clearly thinks that Washington is part of the problem. He seemed to grow increasingly concerned with how his party was being seen and how they didn’t seem to care anymore. He came out with a statement after Scott Brown’s election win in the Massachusetts Senate race, essentially telling the Democrats in Congress that they had better wake up to what the American people were trying to tell them. Still though, the antics of Washington politics, on both sides of the aisle, continued. He was quoted as saying at his press conference this afternoon that “Two weeks ago, the Senate voted down a bipartisan commission to deal with one of the greatest threats facing our nation: our exploding deficits and debt. The measure would have passed, but seven members who had endorsed the idea instead voted ‘no’ for short-term political reasons.”
Senator Bayh should be applauded by both sides of the aisle today. The somewhat conservative Democrat from Indiana didn’t quit because of a scandalous affair with an intern. He didn’t quit because of some kind of addiction that was ruining his life. He didn’t quit because his wife had cancer, although we would all have understood. He quit because he finally saw what we all have been seeing for months. Washington is irretrievably broken, at least in the short term.
The ironic thing is that for Washington to have any hope of being fixed, it needs more men and women like Senator Evan Bayh. Well done, sir, well done.