Image via WikipediaFor good or ill (depending upon your social worldview) the Democratically-controlled Congress threw it's considerable weight behind President Obama's legislative agenda and paid the price for it.
Somewhere George W. Bush is laughing that weird laugh of his and singing the praises of his fellow "Ah-mur-ri-cahns" who fired Nancy Pelosi from her Speaker of the House gig and handed a bunch of Democrats their pink slips period.
To whit, Nancy Pelosi's lesson: Don't mess with average "Ah-mur-ri-cahns."
The average American (I'll assume you have the correct pronunciation down now) is not amused when they are talked down to by a politician.
The average American can't stand arrogance in their leaders.
And the average American isn't thrilled with the idea that they have to live within their means or the "take-back-man" will come repo their crap, but the federal government can just spend like there's no tomorrow.
When Nancy Pelosi was asked what her agenda was when Obama became President, she asserted the following hardcore liberal items: strengthen the economy, end the Iraq war, expand health care, create jobs.
Honestly, each one of those sounds pretty damn good to me.
Unfortunately, the Democrats fell prey to the very thing that they decried in the Republicans who ran everything when W was in the Big House: Pride.
Memo to politicians... Just because you happen to win an election doesn't give you the right to assume you have a corner on the market when it comes to what the average American is thinking. In order to know that you have to actually listen.
Pelosi & Co. at Obama's behest moved with lightning speed when it came to a health care reform bill that is now proving to be not what it was purported to be in the first place. They moved with the speed of mud when it came to ending the war in Iraq.
They didn't listen to former President Clinton who had some really good ideas on how to get the economy moving and instead landed us deeper in debt and farther in the hole. The only jobs they created were government jobs because they forgot that the government can't really create jobs... the marketplace creates jobs and the only way for the marketplace to create jobs is when things like small businesses are growing and expanding because they are free from exorbitant taxes and mountains of regulation and because banks were encouraged to lend to them.
And the entire time they were doing this, average Americans were telling them that they were screwing it up. But because they had a "mandate" Pelosi & Co. ignored them.
And now they are crying in their beer. And cursing the average American for being too stupid to know what's good for them. And vowing like Senator Harry Reid (who basically had to cash in every favor he'd ever earned from NV union bosses to keep his seat) to keep "fighting."
So here's my message to the Republicans who seem to have ridden that wave and who also seem to be taking way too much credit where credit isn't due...
Listen to the average American, my friend. Or the average American will rise up and kick your a--
What was it Ed McMahon used to say? "You are correct, sir!" I think you're right about the arrogance of our politicians.
ReplyDeleteThis could very well deserve a proper response...