The
Monkey-Rope
By Barney Morgan
IPS Features

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IPS Features Staff

International Press Service

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Barney@ipsfeatures.com

Joining the nattering ninnies

The professional political pundits are in high gear analyzing the elections that shuffled the deck and dealt new hands to members of Congress. As a citizen, I claim my right to join the nattering ninnies.

First the bad news.

A friend tells me that differences of opinion about the election have threatened his decades-old friendship with another guy who has accompanied him on many out-of-state fishing trips. You don't go out of the state to fish with casual acquaintances. They have had many good times together, and the one who is also my friend is very concerned about it. If their friendship doesn't survive, it will be a shame. This isn't an isolated case. I know of others, and that's the bad news. Political differences too often divide us.

It doesn't have to be that way. Hearing the story about the fishing buddies prompted me to think about my own closest friendships. Of course, I was aware that some of my friends didn't agree with my political views. But thinking about the friends one by one, to my surprise I realized that at least half of them do not agree with me. Politically, birds of a feather do not necessarily flock together. But it's a good feeling for me to know that the friendships are secure. Friends don't always have to agree, even about things that are very important to them. And that's the good news. That's what makes our body politic work.

What were the voters saying to the candidates?

Foremost, they were saying, "Get us out of the Iraq quagmire." But they were also saying, "Quit bickering and govern." Thoughtful Americans of both parties are sick of dunce-corner politics. They are sick of deceitful campaigning. They are sick of attack advertising, even if they fall prey to it. They are sick of politicians talking about diversionary piffle and ignoring health care, and job creation, and fixing Social Security, and woeful public education, and massive debt being heaped onto our children and grandchildren, and energy and environmental crises, not to mention the meteoric ascension of China and India.

Democrats -- and I'm one -- have not done much to deserve the chance they have been given. They have inherited the majority role in the House of Representatives and Senate by default. The Republicans were ousted because they blew it, not because the Democrats did anything right. If Democrats don't do something promptly to get the federal government out of gridlock, they will suffer, and deserve, the same rejection.

To whatever extent the elections were a rebuke to President Bush, it was more than the mess in Iraq. I believe there were many Americans who, like me, were deeply offended by Bush's assertions that anyone who criticized his policies in Iraq were somehow unpatriotic and even aiding the enemy. That's an awfully low blow.

With so much emphasis on the effects of the election on the war in Iraq, most analysts haven't got around to considering the effects on future judicial appointments. They will. They know it means the chances of President Bush getting Senate approval of even one more judge in the mold of Roberts and Alito is zero. That's big.

About the Rumsfeld resignation.

Papa Bush and godfather Baker arranged for Dubya to use the Oval Office as a Tinker Toy. But they made the mistake of giving him a set of Pentagon-bred mentors who encouraged his cowboy inclination to play with guns. While frittering away the first 40 years of his life boozing and partying, Dubya didn't have time to learn much about adult games. Now Papa Bush and godfather Baker have been forced to step in and find a place for the buck to stop. Rumsfeld hasn't done much to merit sympathy, but historians will note that he had a boss.

I can't resist a little dig at my Republican friends occasionally. I never claimed to be nonpartisan.