The media's screaming right-wing fringe is crying foul lately. Before I get to what's got their tighty whities in a wad I need to ask a question: Why do the talking heads of talk TV and talk radio feel the need to raise their voices to the verge of foaming-at-the-mouth spittle projection?
Do they really believe that raising their decible levels will convert fence-sitters or the truly undecided so they will pressure their elected representatives in Congress to vote the right way on issues like health-care reform and the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?
I would like to see a reasoned debate on the issues, with neither side taking cheap shots, questioning the opposition's loyalty or honesty.
I would also like both sides to actually read the legislation before them -- read it themselves; really read it --and not take someone else's word for what's in the legislation. Anything less than that is lazy legislating that deserves a swift boot out of the halls of Congress.
I know, I sound like Pollyanna and expect those governing us to do the right thing for our country. But I don't think that's too much to ask for. If our elected officials don't want to do the work they were elected to do, they should get out of Washington or Austin, Santa Fe or Sacramento and then get a real job -- not as a lobbyist but a real, 8-hours-a-day, 40 hours a week job. I doesn't look like that's the way things are heading,
Too bad.
Meabwhile, back to what the screaming heads are screaming at this news cycle: in essense, the other side is being mean to them. When Ronald Reagan was in the Oval Office, the left wing barely voiced criticism of the popular Gipper; they were almost apologetic for bringing up policy issues they disagreed with. The Left was so meek the country and the right wing understood it to be the proper way to run the government. And with the election of George H.W. Bush, many of those policies continued in one form or another. H.W. was Gipper Mild, but Gipper just the same.
But when the country had the utter gaul to elect Bill Clinton, the right wingnuts came out screaming even before the inauguration, trying to unseat his presidency even before he had a chance to take the oath of office. Clinton had his personal faults -- too many not to be embarrassed while in office -- but the right wing used his moral failings as an excuse to rip his policies. The budget surplus must have made them crazier than they akready are. It must have sent the right wingers to hit the hard stuff when Clinton got re-elected.
Clinton did many good things for the country and parts of the world. If the Republicans hadn't busted a gut getting him impeached, who knows what this country could haver accomplished?
The eight years of George W. Bush proved to every schoolchild that the Founding Fathers had it right when they formulated the Constitution: The country and its institutions are stronger than any one man occupying the White House. The right wingnuts were able to get the country thinking that any criticism of a wartime president -- even if he did start the wars himself -- was unpatriotic.
Well, now we have another wartime preswdient, but it's OK to criticize him this time because he's a Democrat. But with the left wing finally discovering its backbone enough to push back, it's the GOP that's whining and crying foul. If the Republicans really have new ideas and new plans to improve the country, let them unveil them in a dignified manner. Oh, but that would marginalize their screaming heads on TV and talk radio.
On second thought, that would be good for the country, and calm and quiet will descend upon D.C.