George Burns used to tell the story of his father, who was asked
to serve as a cantor for Yom Kippur services in a synagogue on the
Lower East Side of New York, except that the community was too poor
to pay. So he volunteered. After the holiday, while the mother
prepared a meal to break the fast, Dad was playing with the kids in
unusually good spirits. “What are you so happy about?” Mom asked.
“They’re not paying for your work.” Dad smiled and said, “No, but
they did ask me back for next year.”
And so it seems to be with our Republican Congress. They can’t
actually accomplish anything, and that’s the bad news, but the good
news is that they keep on winning. Like they tell you to do if the
airplane falls into the sea, the Republicans have become adept at
holding on to their seats. They are the champions of Musical
Chairs, despite the tragic passing of Sonny Bono. Beyond that, a
cacophony of inefficiency. Can it be true what they say, that
Hastert makes waste?
We were forced to sit Schiavo recently for our faith in their
effectiveness. They came in the night to rescue her, did our
intrepid heroes, they moved heaven and earth. They extricated
themselves from other commitments, they expedited the legislative
process, and in honor of Easter they laid an egg. They took their
political capital up to the Capitol, they counted capita, and they
produced a bill that was promptly decapitated.
The judiciary is coming in for the brunt of the criticism for
derailing the good intentions of our duly elected representatives,
and rightly so. Much clamor is directed at these appointed judges,
although in my view they are well appointed in black robes
befitting deliverers of death. Let’s not give the Republican
Congress a pass; these judicial appointments are the worst, but the
legislative disappointments are a close second. Is it that
complicated when you’re writing a law to save a person, to write a
law that will save the person?
Not to mention the cruel hoax that was visited on the family. It
must have been exciting for one little anonymous middle-class
family to find their daughter being championed by the great movers
of our government. To have a tree house built especially for them
on the legislative and executive branches. A beautiful, touching
message to the little guy in this country, testimony to the value
of each individual life. Then it turns out that rather than being
nestled in the branches they were out on a limb.
It recalls the story that Benjamin Franklin tells in his
autobiography about the Governor who agreed to give him a job when
he was down and out; after Ben packed his bags and moved to the
state capital, not only was there no job, he could never get
another meeting with the Governor. The following is close to
verbatim: “I wondered how a Governor could be so heartless as to
mislead a young man and cause him so much grief. After pondering
the matter, I concluded that his desire was to give, but as he had
nothing substantial to give, he gave expectations.”
Fixing this will require backbone. There was supposed to be a
point to electing these people. We didn’t pull the lever to get a
chamber full of crumbs. We want to see laws that are sufficiently
explicit so even the most imprudent jurist cannot say, “De novo?
That’s rich.” At the very least, we expect to see a solution to the
Senate filibuster on judicial appointments. Use the nuclear option
or the Smith and Wesson option or the King David Slingshot option,
but GET IT DONE. Failure is not an option.
Small government was their battle cry, and that is well and
good. Only not small-minded government. It’s a small step from
there to heartless, soulless, gutless, and spineless, as Terri’s
Law has dramatized. They waited until the eleventh hour, voted at
12:01, the man from Crawford signed on, and it all ended just like
Midnight Cowboy — with one battered person lying dead in
Florida.
It’s a scandal. All sizzle and no steak, even with lives at
stake. Then the sizzle turns to fizzle. Mr. Smith had a jones to
get to Washington but now he’s caught like a doe in the headlights.
If we have to name this scandal, I suppose it is Mitty Gate, for
all these ineffectual Walter Mittys who dreamt of making a
difference: an unmitigated disaster. Those are not laurels they’re
wearing, those are wreaths. They did not come to praise and seize
her, they came to bury her.
I don’t know what it will take to rouse these folks from their
torpor. Probably an Act of Congress.
