State of the Union: Politics as Usual

This is just an observation from the State of the Union address by President Bush last night. It really doesn't have much to do with his address as much as it has to do with the dynamics going on in the fight for who will be the Democratic candidate for President.

Who could help noticing how forlorn Hilary Clinton looked in the several audience shots that focused on her. I felt a little sorry for her because it looked like it was taking everything within her just to sit there with an emotionless expression....except the giveaway sadness in her eyes.

Who could blame her if she was feeling down? Ted Kennedy delivered a power punch to Hilary's bid for the Democratic nomination yesterday.

Even the conservative pundits were jazzed about how awe inspiring the 3-Kennedy stamp of approval on Barack Obama had been earlier in the day. The return of "Camelot." (Oy veh. Pure fairytale.)

Now Obama sat listening thoughtfully to the State of the Union address with Senator Kennedy at his side, the senior senator's message loudly stating: 'I am protecting Obama now! Watch out, junior, a real power broker is in the house.'

Politics as usual. That's what is really scary to me. We let some of them stay there so long that they have far too much personal power. Senator Kennedy was teaching Bill Clinton a lesson: 'You can't ignore me because I still have the power to squash your dreams.' I don't think it was about what is best for the nation, but was a personal power trip by Kennedy.

I have no doubt that the Clintons will fight back. They still have their friends. Senator Biden seemed to console Hilary sitting to her side.

Still, it is a little sickening to me to see the manipulation of the public in such an important matter as the presidency all for the sake of some old politician's sense of personal power. If Bill Clinton had heeded Ted Kennedy's warning to lower the rhetoric, then we probably would not have seen three Kennedys come out yesterday to throw their backing behind Obama. Bill played his own game, however, and Teddy decided to show him he still had some major weight to throw around.

I don't want Hilary as our next president. I don't want Obama in that seat either. Neither one of them have the guts or the vision to chart the course of our nation through the shark infested waters of the international war on terrorism. But I hate seeing what politics as usual is capable of like we were seeing yesterday.

If the American people would like to see real change take place, then in the next three years they would throw the bums out who are locking up all movement in Congress because they've been there too long and amassed the political power base to keep anything from happening! We might be amazed at how much would get done with a clean sweep of deadbeats from the congressional halls. (Deadbeats being those incapable of compromise for the good of the nation.)

The biggest problem in the United States government today is the deadlock going on politically. We are like those people who were trapped in the burning nightclub a few years ago sardined in so tightly that even though they were right in the doorway, they couldn't emerge from the burning building to save themselves. That is a hell of a place to put ourselves.