A big day for "politics" with a small "p" in Washington

The "p"olitics in Politics is making itself seen today in Washington.  First up is a story from the Washington Post concerning the seriously troubled nomination of former FBI man, Erroll Southers, to head the TSA.  The piece is entitled Republicans put new hold on TSA nominee Erroll Southers and I have said before, this is one left wing Democrat who agrees with the Republicans on this one.

In what may very well be the biggest political time bomb of 2010 we see that many key Democrats are retiring this year which puts the Democratic Party control of the House and Senate in serious question for next year.  The piece is entitled Dodd, Dorgan and Ritter to retire as Democrats face difficult midterm election year . 

In an Op Ed piece by E.J. Dionne Jr. entitled What Dorgan’s retirement and other exits mean for the Democrats we get a view of the bigger picture.  It is worth a good slow read.  You get a real good sense of how freaking Machiavellian Washington politics really is.

If we on the Left of American politics ever had any hope that an Obama presidency would take us into territory where substantial progressive legistlative and fiscal change could make life easier for the working American we are having serious doubts now.  Ultimately what these retirements could very well mean to the average American is "Big Business as usual" will continue to trump everything else in Congress.

I have to be honest with you.  I am surprised that I am surprised.  I would have thought that I would have learned by now. I guess that I am a lot more naive than I thought even at my age.

As I have said many times before, as a dyed in the wool liberal bordering on radical, the Obama Presidency continues to be a big disapointment to me.  We could have achieved so much if the guy actually had an agenda other than "being the president".  We appear to have elected a ‘personality’ to the presidency.  That is not going to get much change for the people.  Ultimately those of us who worked so hard to get him into the White House are going to demand an accounting.

A ‘celebrity’ in the White House will not provide the tough and tenacious leadership that the Democratic Party is going to need to keep Democratic control of the House and Senate in 2010, a year that promises to be a brutal election cycle. 

It just may be possible that a progressive American administration is no longer viable in the American psyche anymore.  We may be too rigid and unbending in our need for instant gratification in our lives for the tough realities of populist government now.

We may now finally have arrived at the point where "screw everybody else, I’ve got mine. Let them get theirs!" is the mantra that all of us follow in politics now, regardless of party affiliation.

We may have travelled so far into the "Reaganization" of America that by now the entire idea of a government "for the people, by the people and of the people" is a ridiculous longing for days gone by that can now never be fulfilled.  Big Business is now more firmly entrenched as the heart and soul of America than it has been since the days of the Robber Barons.

We now have a Democratic president that is waging needless wars on several fronts while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize and giving a "war is peace" speech that would make George Orwell cringe if he were still alive.  That entire evening was a major embarassment to any Democrat.  It was humiliating.

I am not kidding.  If I had just woken up from a coma and someone was explaining the last fifteen months of American politics to me, I would call him a liar.  This is too surreal to even pass for ludicrous fiction.  The Democratic Party is a pale shadow of what it was under virtually any previous Democratic Administration of the past one hundred years.  It shames me.

These people are not liberals, they are not progressives, they are not "of the people".  They are Republicans Light, a sort of pale version of a Big Business friendly brew that allows working people to be crushed and paves the road for the very wealthy to become the mega-wealthy at the expense of the American worker.  And the prospects for a fair shake from government are getting worse as every day goes by.

However, I could be wrong. 

In a piece entitled Dodd’s retirement decision may boost chances for financial regulatory overhaul we learn that perhaps we can get major financial overhaul out of the Senate this year.  Maybe, just maybe, the working stiff can get a break from government. Wouldn’t that be a nice thing; American government actually working again for the rights and benefits of the little guy?

Moving on to basic safety concerns for the American traveler as it joins itself to American legislation we have a story entitled After attempted airline bombing, effectiveness of intelligence reforms questioned in which we read that legislation enacted to protect Americans has probably done….very little.  Imagine that.

And finally from Politics Daily we have a piece entitled Obama’s Coattails Can’t Stop Democrats’ Election-Year Retirements .  A truer headline was never in print.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)