The one thing that is clear from the most recent elections and those that occurred a year ago is that the people of this country want our elected officials to stop playing the political game, to stop worrying about whether the Democrats or Republicans “won” or “lost” and start to solve the critical problems that they care about.
I for one abhor the constant discussion on TV, radio, blogs and in print about which side is winning on this or that issue, election or policy debate. The issues, I suppose, are too complex for the mainstream media to understand.
Mostly, though, I think it is just a lot more fun for the political reporters to pretend for a time that they are ESPN sports junkies reporting in SportCenter wittiness on wins, losses and the performances of the participants. Top plays. Web gems. Hilarious miscues, errors and bloopers.
Alas, whether or not the future of our country and the world depends on intelligent action in Washington, the discussion continues to center around whether each event was a win or a loss for Barrack Obama.
Sure we have an unwieldy federal deficit, millions of uninsured Americans, drug battles with Mexican kingpins, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an impending energy crisis, and the possibility of Global Warming creating tremendous human chaos, not to mention the economy and unemployment, but clearly the critical point is how each politician rates in terms of wins and losses.
And, of course, wins are not measured by whether we solve any of these problems. No, they are measured by rhetoric in the House, battles over details in the Senate, local elections, speeches, interviews, and whatever the pundits decide merit placement on the scorecard. And somehow, pushing these important policy issues forward seldom seems to make it on the list.
I wonder who really is causing the gridlock in Washington. I blame it all on ESPN.
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