SULLUM: Obstinate obstetrician

Once again, this is a Democrat initiative to cover up their ineffectiveness in the Senate and the House over the past four years and get them reelected. It is a simulacra, it has the image of action without the substance. "Never confuse movement with action." Ernest Hemingway

Earmarks are a disgrace. Coburn is doing the best he can but he lacks the stature of Proxmire whose annual Golden Fleece awards were priceless. My sense is that the citizens outside the Beltway strongly object to earmarks as a whole, but welcome earmarks that benefit their particular community or business. The difficulty in dealing with this seems to me to be that earmarks are not very visible, are slipped into bills, and are not voted on. I think that there is only one person who can put real heat on Congress to stop this and that is the President. The President is the only person whose position requires that he represent the best interests of the nation as a whole. He has the power to deal with this if he chooses to exercise it. Bush has been a fiscal disaster. It is hard for me to imagine that Obama with a Democratic Congress and a self destructed GOP would deal with it. We are moving fairly rapidly (in historical terms) into a condition of fiscal distress as a nation. We have experienced an incredibly long period of prosperity amidst peace at home. Human nature is short-sighted and responds to such a condition by assuming that it will continue, luxuries become viewed as necessities, and massive debt doesn't matter given that not much has changed in living conditions (yet!). Congress bribes the voters with their own money and they (we) en-masse haven't realized it nor come to grips with that yet. We will only deal with this when we are hit by crisis conditions.

Thank God for Senator Coburn and the fact he did not cave in to the hack from Nevada. The Republicans could take lessons in obstructionism from the disgraceful show business displays put on by Reed the hack and the wicked witch of the west Pelosi. The Democratic side of the Senate is nothing more than a gaggle of self important bloviators.

Does anyone remember what position Reid and The Times took regarding Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees?

Hey, Nevada, Reid is embarrassing your neighbors to the north. Please elect a decent Senator.

Gosh - This was a good read. I'd like to see more of this kind of writing.