First the illusions were shattered. We elected them, telling all of our Republican neighbors that if the Dems were given control we could end this Republican War.
We told them that the corruption would be exposed through "oversight".
We promised that starved social programs like WIC, and Medicare, and health insurance would be revitalized.
We vowed that the un-Constitutional actions of the Bush Administration would be brought to a halt.
We gave them a numerical majority in both the House and the Senate.
Well, so much for THAT!
The New Majority has been out-maneuvered, out-played and out-smarted on every hearing, investigation, and legislative effort they have timidly brought forward.
We have begged, screamed, implored, and threatened - all to no avail.
Well, finally, I think I have figured out the problem.
THEY ARE NOT AS SMART AS THE REPUBLICANS!
We get side tracked with head shaking at comments like "making our own reality", with traitors like Lieberman, with nut jobs like McCain, and Rudy, with protests that "we don't have the votes". We keep assuming that the New Majority will figure it out, once they see the polls, hear from their constituents, find a little patriotism, or statesmanship, or guts.
We've got it all wrong.
The New Majority just doesn't know how to play this game. They don't understand power, or how to exert it. They don't understand the rules of the body in which they serve. They don't read the legislation they vote for, consider the long term implications of their decisions, or know enough to hold the levers of power.
They cower before a media that has been widely discounted as having any power to shape opinion, they live in fear of a political environment alive and well in the 1960's, and they are not paying attention to the power of the electronic world to shovel information out before the MSM can get their hard disks booted.
When we look at the results of 8 months of wasted time, collapsing agendas, and the horror of Blackwater, Kurdistan, Petraus, and Bush, and the total ineffectuality of our elected Representatives to deal effectively with the role we gave them, I am forced to the only conclusion possible.
They are really, really, stupid people - one and all.
They keep giving away the store, they cringe, and fail, and wimper, and stumble, and try to disregard our pleas by accepting the "Far Left" lable we have been awarded by the Republicans and their foot washing pundits. They ignore all of the evidence that the vast majority of people in this country are demanding a "Far Left" agenda. They are not smart enough to figure out either the right thing to do, or how to do it.
Historically, Republicans have managed to control a large part of the process of legislation, because they were smart enough to read the rules and use the rules to their advantage. Our Guys are not that smart.
It is long past time that we recognize that we are going to have to set a much higher standard for supporting candidates for elective office. They will have to demonstrate that they read, understand, and will act on the proceedures of governance. Else, we wil be raising bruses on this brick wall until the last building in DC is flooded, the last car sputters to a halt, and the last crop is burned to a crisp.
They really are stupid.