Wrong Change

Somebody noted in a blog comment that while Obama told gays and lesbians that they would have to wait for him to move on their cause, DOMA and DADT, because the need to deal with the economy and healthcare was the pressing need at the moment, but that he had time to go to Denmark and lobby for Chicago to get the Olympics.

That sounds like reasonable criticism, but it’s nothing of the sort. The first is a matter of pressuring Congress to take action and, while the President may be able to deal with multiple matters simultaneously, Congress clearly can not. It’s not clear that they can even deal with one thing at a time. The Olympic deal is a brief stop enroute to other matters one day out of the President's schedule.

On a more important note (than the Olympics), it was noted that acknowledgement has emerged from the White House that Guantanamo will not be closed by the promised date of Jan 22nd. Do not even think of chalking that up to Obama as a broken promise. That failure has to do with fearmongering from others, and with Congress folding like a cheap suit and deciding that prisons that can hold the likes of Charles Manson and Timothy McVeigh are not sufficiently secure to hold “Arabs and Muslims.”

To Congress, putting “Arabs and Muslims” in continental prisons is the equivalent of having a terrorist on every street corner in America, gunning down innocent women and children with machine guns. The police and National Guard wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, because “Arabs and Muslims” are impervious to bullets.

We keep electing new Presidents, and reelecting the same Congress.

Congress is about as useful as a screen door in a submarine. Next time around we need to reverse the trend; we need to keep the President and elect a whole new Congress. Elect unknowns and first-timers. We could hardly do worse than what we have.