Congress Declares Itself a Vegetable

Seemingly more concerned with the nutritional value of 1/8 cup of tomato paste than the economic health of the nation, Congress found solace rooting itself firmly among the insentient flora.

 “Trees don’t have eyes,” said John Boehner, who really looks for all the world like a sad jack-o-lantern, “because if they had, and saw the woodsman coming, they couldn’t run away.”  (or something as irrelevant)   It took a few seconds, but I finally realized the 7-week-old leaf of lettuce retorting to the pumpkin was Nancy Pelosi.  “But they could scream,” (or something like that) she blurted out before blinking in contemplation of what she just said.

The stalk of asparagus in Harry Reid glasses placed the lack of dressing on the salad squarely on the intransience of the “no oil before vinegar” pledges sworn to by the non-green vegetables.  A lump of cauliflower named Mitch said he was steamed.

OK, Congress didn’t actually declare pizza a vegetable as the sexy headlines claimed.  They rejected a change in formula from one that equates the nutritional value of 1/8 of cup of tomato paste to ½ a cup of other vegetables in lieu of one that would have defined ½ cup of anything equivalent to ½ cup of anything else.  Good job boys, no wonder you’re exhausted.

So the Super Committee failed as expected (intended, maybe).   It was a kabuki play anyway, designed to gather ordinance for the opposing camps to launch at one another in an election year.  The first salvos are already being fired—the shock and awe is yet to come 

“It’s Obama’s fault—no leadership,” wails the Right.   I can only imagine the indignation if the president had been unloading daily memos to the Super Committee on just what direction to take, how much to pare here, to collect there.  (Don’t you just want to smack that GPS voice in the mouth?)  And HIS committee, Simpson-Bowles, managed to actually produce a product without hands-on interference

“It’s Grover Norquist’s fault,” moans the Left.  Grover Norquist?  I don’t think 1 in 1000 Americans could pick Grover Norquist out of six-item lineup that included Grover, Lady Gaga, three mushrooms and a trombone.  He’s the author of the No Tax Increase pledge signed by most Republicans of course; but the pledge wasn’t to Grover, it’s a pledge to constituents.  Blaming them would not be a great PR move I suppose.  If Grover Norquist really does have more influence on the economic policies of this nation than the President of the United States, shame on the president.

We have two minority parties, I think, self-defined by positions instead of ideas.  They even talk of “issues” in lieu of solutions and I have issues with that.  Politics is less philosophy of governance than a collection of marketing strategies to bring specific interest groups into a collective fold of minorities: evangelicals over here, teachers’ unions over there. The GOP and the Dems are in hopeless stagnation and seem to prefer it that way.  Conversations are impossible when every sentence is required to be a campaign slogan. 

The Reps are terrified of any economic uptick that could possibly be attributed to an Obama action (better no action even if it would have included some cherished goals).  The Dems are content to let the Other stonewall and place the blame there (better that than to have some purported remedy actually enacted and risk its failure).  Folding like a cheap suit at even the threat of cloture is a tactic within that strategy.

These minority confederacies can’t move because they insist on their dessert first.  And one party’s dessert is the other’s poison.  So even getting your tiramisu if it’s laced with the other’s strychnine is not an acceptable compromise; it’s suicide & a non-starter.  Compromise would be talking about the entre, finding mutual nourishment in the main course and trade off on an array of side dishes.  Argue about desserts when you’re full.  A union of parochial interests, united by only what they are against, can never accomplish this.

We need a third party—a collection of pragmatists who may very well have different priorities, but will work to advance their interests by finding common ground, not simply claiming credit or assigning blame for events that occur independent of their, or their opponents’ actions.   Collecting pragmatists, admittedly, is a much tougher marketing project than spewing single issue slogans like “no taxes” or “tax the other guy.”

Maybe Simpson-Bowles could be a gravitational center.  It has enough in it for everyone to dislike something—a testament to its level-headedness in my view.  If “sharing the pain” is a legitimate and pragmatic sentiment of real-world problem solvers, perhaps a pledge to implement S/B could become a litmus test for candidates seeking support of the (one would hope, majority) fed-up but rational. 
How much better would it have been if the Simpson-Bowles recommendations had been the default conditions of Super Committee impasse rather than a reckless “sequestering” scenario?

Pointing at Obama or Norquist is…. Fruitless(!)  It’s the fault of the vegetables.  Planted in place and without eyes, they can’t see the woodsman coming; they can’t run away or scream either.  They just suck up nutrients and go to seed, gradually replaced by their own kind or an occasional bizarre hybrid.  Give me some surf & turf.

 

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