perfidy

I've always thought that it's not so much that power corrupts, but more that power attracts the corruptible.

Interesting take on things there, sir. I hadn't thought of it that way, but in all future conversations that don't involve you, I'll pretend that is an original thought of my own.

And, as usual, it's as current as today's">http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/3245096]today's local news. Well, local, if one happens to live in Houston anyway.

A cogent argument could be made that politics virtually requires one to be corrupt, as the price of admission.

That's the default assumption, anyway. It's generally safe to presume that any politician is on the make. But there are crusaders, people who run for office because something pissed them off, and they want to fix it. And probably at least a few who have a genuine sense of civic duty, though those don't generally run for office - they'll serve some other way.

Term Limits! Please give us term limits! Forget the flag burning crap – amend the Consition to limit the number of terms for Senators and Representatives.

Maybe they start to believe their own campaign ads or the sycophants around them. Perhaps the water is bad or they just lose touch with reality. Whatever, these people need help – send them home.

It’s depressing to see crusading clean government types elected to Congress, get a little done, then sell out or burn out. The “Contract with America” Republicans had some great ideas and a lot of momentum ten years ago. Now they sponsor gigantic pork laden highway bills – yuck – just go home.

Nobody should be in Washington more than ten years. They seem to automatically turn into ponderous jack-asses around that time. Name any Senator who has been there a while from either party – Kennedy, Byrd, Lott, Kerry, Specter – and you have to shudder. For their own good, send them home after two terms, please.

Patton:

Perhaps the answer to that is another question -- why should they change?

No, really. If they don't change, what are the consequences to them? They pretty much get re-elected as long as they want, and seldom (if ever) are asked to account for their actions.

Personally, I don't think things will change until the electorate as a whole starts sending a message that 'business as usual' won't be tolerated. But that means that people will need to start working -- keeping track of what's said and promised, what's done, and does what this publically elected official did match what they said and what people wanted?

As a nice side effect, it may just turn current "news" reporting from the insipid and celebrity gossip to something more usefull, so that I don't have to go to the BBC to find out what's happened in the world today.

Bram:

Term Limits! Please give us term limits! Forget the flag burning crap – amend the Consition to limit the number of terms for Senators and Representatives.

We already have term limits -- they're called 'elections'.

Elections? Sure. Gerrymandered all to hell, pretty much everywhere but Iowa and, if the Gubernator succeeds, California. Here in TX, we just had a retaliatory Republican gerrymandering in response to the prior gerrymandering by the Democrats, itself surely retaliatory as well. It's like a friggin' high-school slap fight.

The sad result is that elections as a form of term limitation are rendered ineffective by the two parties who'd prefer to assure their continued seat-warming rather than to assume the task of, you know, actually doing much of anything.

And thus, it's hard both to get any of them to even hear what the people want, much less to do it. They're too busy sniffing their own asses, in a lot of cases. Business as usual seems to be the default option for most voters, with no second choice.

Cripes. Exactly why are you accepting Peggy Noonan's capsule biography of Obama as definitive?

Obama's parents divorced when he was two; the father left, and eventually went to Kenya. Obama saw him only once more, at age ten. Obama spent part of his childhood in Jakarta; he returned to live on Hawaii with his grandparents (also at age ten), to get a better education. He was accepted at the private school based on his grades; the grandparents lived in a small apartment.

I could go on. Noonan's typically snide commentary is, as usual, predicated on carefully shadowed assumptions.

It's not about Obama, it's about the lot of them. But since you bring it up, read Obama's statement again, and you might react the same way I did, without regard for his personal history.

He sounded, for the first time I've seen, like a goddamned schmuck, comparing himself to Lincoln. It's got nothing to do with his upbringing, or Noonan's explication of it, which I noted was different than what I'd read before, and didn't affect my interpretation even a bit.

And it's no better, and no worse, than Frist's, or any of a host of other folks', self-aggrandizement.

They're not like us. Politicians are self-important assholes. There. I've said it. That's they're problem.

This morning on NPR, there was story about a NY state representative who accidentally emailed a constituency listserver calling them 'pontificating idiots.'

I maybe a pontificating idiot, but don't abuse me, asshole.

The sad part is that this ungrateful bozo may be reelected anyway.