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Elections, the Berlin Wall, Afghanistan and healthcare make for quite a week
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House Dems decide that 1,000 page bills are too short, so they passed a 2,000 pager instead
What a crazy week!
African Americans and young voters stayed away from the polls in droves last Tuesday, resulting in sweeping republican election victories, especially in New Jersey and Virginia. Revealing that the President's coattails are shorter than many Democratic Party operatives had believed, Mr. Obama's campaign appearances in the Garden State failed to have a positive impact for the incumbent governor. Yet, in a show that the Democrat's New Math hasn't at all gone into retreat, Nancy Pelosi nonetheless declared the election results a "great victory." (One can hardly wait for the metaphor she'll use after the 2010 elections!)
Friday, on the heels of the Democratic Party's great victory, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate hit a twenty-six year high of 10.2%, which translates roughly into 16 million Americans unemployed. Combined with part-time workers and those who have stopped looking, the Labor Department reported that the underemployment rate for October hit 17.5 percent. These numbers perhaps also represent a great victory, as the White House reported hundreds of thousands of jobs being "saved or created." Unfortunately for the White House, most Americans aren't good at the New Math and don't get the logic of how giving someone a raise counts as saving a job or how a shoe store that provided nine pairs of boots to the Army (valued at $889.60) could claim it saved nine jobs.
Over the weekend, Nancy Pelosi and the House democrats squeaked the almost 2,000 page health care bill to a three vote victory and thus sent it along to the Senate, where the Democratic Party's 2000 vice presidential nominee declared he could not support the legislation. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), appearing on Fox News Sunday, told Chris Wallace that "as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote because I believe that the debt can break America and send us into a recession that's worse than the one we're fighting our way out of today. I don't want to do that to our children and grandchildren."
Back at the Pentagon, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey backed a call to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. On NBC's Sunday morning program Meet the Press, the General said, "I believe that we need to put additional forces into Afghanistan to give Gen. McChrystal (the theater commander) the ability to both dampen the success of the Taliban while we train the Afghan security forces." An article in today's Wall Street Journal suggests that General Casey's backing for additional troops carries significant weight, as he was only a "reluctant supporter" of the surge in Iraq." His reluctance at the time, reports the Journal, was due to a concern that more U.S. troops could anger Iraqis and put dangerous levels of stress on American forces. President Obama, who has long called our involvement in Afghanistan a "war of necessity" has come under increased criticism from supporters and foes alike for indecisiveness regarding America's future in the conflict.
On the good news front last week, Germans celebrated the 20th anniversary of the night the Berlin Wall came down. The symbolism of this event could not be more important, as the Cold War was the modern world's longest and costliest, responsible for deaths and unrest for a period of decades. The great victory being celebrated in Germany finds the heads of state of all 27 Euopean Union members--and even Russian President Dmitri Medvedev--in attendance. President Obama, who made time to fly to Copenhagen to lobby for the oh-so important Olympic Games, didn't make the trip.
The tune being sung in the media for the last ten months has been Taps for the destruction of the Republican Party, but that is proving ephemeral. As Congress' and the President's approval ratings sink, hope for change is beginning to be vested instead in newly elected leaders and men like Senator Lieberman. Polls continue to show that most Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. It's the economy, stupid. It's the crushing weight of debt. It's that the health care debate is really about people worrying themselves sick over joblessness, housing, and terrorism... not about those who don't want to buy insurance. It's about tin-eared congressmen who don't read one thousand page bills and then go on to pass a 2,000 page bill.
Americans are starting to feel snookered and dis-respected, and the political blowback that is likely to result will put the term great victory into the same jokebook as saved or created.
Photo: Associated Press
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