Or... there's another interpretation

Caught a little bit of Fox News the other day.  The commentators were gleefully reporting that a majority of Americans are not happy with the job Congress is doing.  Indeed, a lot of Democrats are not happy with the job Congress is doing.  And since it is a "Democratically-controlled Congress," the talking heads over there at Fox interpreted this as meaning that Democrats themselves are fed-up at the liberal agenda which the Democratic leaders in Congress are trying to force down our throats.

Well, sure, that's one way of looking at it.

Then again, Democrats might be unhappy with the job Congress is doing for a whole boatload of reasons.

Honestly, it isn't that I want to dump the Democrats in Congress and replace them with Republicans.  It's that I want to dump every single individual -- of whatever party -- who thinks his or her job is to grandstand and make speeches geared toward getting sound bites on the evening news, rather than to do the damn job of hammering out legislation.  


Poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans agree that we need some sort of health care reform legislation -- and this weekend's vote showed us that the Republicans would rather not debate the current proposal at all, rather than sitting down around the table, and still trying to do their best to create the best piece of legislation for Americans, (recognizing that, since they don't have numerical superiority, they're not arguing from a position of strength).


For myself, I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal -- I think the best health care plan can only be generated if the interests of providing health care coverage for all Americans are balanced with the interests of not overly burdening those individuals and businesses who will be asked to pay for it.  This sort of solution requires the good faith participation of both sides -- not one side steamrolling its legislation over the other, and not one side taking its toys and refusing to play.


I damn near want to lock 'em in a room, take away all the cameras, and not let 'em out until they have a piece of legislation which satisfies each and every Senator -- or, at least, with respect to which each Senator can say, "I've made this as good as I can possibly make it -- given the interests of the 99 other people in there."


Yes, I know -- I'm idealistic and naive and all that.  But I'm disappointed in Congress in the same way a parent might be disappointed in a child who won't do his homework.  I just expected better of them.