"If your eyes are glazing over like mine, this is what it's like to be on the floor of the United States Senate...endless debates about how many angels on the head of a pin, from people who've never had to make a consequential decision in an executive position." Gov. Chris Christie, GOP Debate, CNN, Dec. 15, 2015
December 16, 2015
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Who'd a thunk it? CNN doing a fair and balanced GOP debate.
But they did.
Moderator Wolf Blitzer and his panel, Dana Bash and Hugh Hewitt, were informed and respectful.
Nothing at all like the snarky performance handed in by the FOX Kelly-Baier-Wallace Republican Debate team.
Nice job.
It was another interesting debate, widely watched, and unlike the Democratic debates, Barack Obama was mentioned as the reason for the season of despair prevalent in our country.
And Hillary Clinton.
It was nice to hear facts.
Unlike the Democratic debates, "controversial stuff" was said out loud, such as: "What do you mean the economy does better under a Democratic president, Hillary? We've had one for eight years and the country couldn't be in worse shape!"
And unlike the Democratic debates, candidates weren't falling over each other, making promises to give away the store.
Republican governors didn't have the image of Baltimore burning to the ground as part of their presidential background resumes.
And cute little scruffy guys weren't onstage and onboard selling Socialist/Communist propaganda to college kids.
But there was the same kind of political double talk.
When it came to the "insiders," namely the senators, they shifted into Congress-speak, squabbling among themselves about who voted for what or who didn't and what the Gang of Eight really did, or didn't, and where they stood on closing our borders.
When they were done, there were some feathers on the floor, but no real answers.
As his and our eyes glazed over, Gov. Christie jumped in and put the debate back on point: "What can we do when one of us is elected president to clean up Obama's mess?"
As they say, good question.
Once burned, however, twice shy, and American voters have been burned.
They are scared to trust because it is a game they've played many times, believing that voting will change the dynamic. Thinking that if they elect them, they will come...to Washington and do what they promised.
But they never keep those promises.
So where do they all go after we elect them? The senators and representatives who work for us in Congress? The secretaries of state and defense who are appointed. Where do they go after they're appointed?
Because after these public servants are placed in a position to do what they came to Washington to do, once they get there, they don't.
Remember when Republicans captured a majority in the House in 2010? When they did it in the Senate?
Well, all we've heard on the many and sundry TV interviews given by Republican Congressmen, is them telling us what they can't do.
They can't impeach Obama because it would make him a martyr. They can't "shut down the country" to oppose Obama, because they're afraid the American people won't like them. They cannot use the power of the purse. They just plain won't, because, they say, they just plain can't.
They have become the Party of Can't and Won't.
Remember when Speaker John Boehner finally quit, to the applause of House Republicans, and Paul Ryan was the-guy-Republicans-and-the-country couldn't do without because there-was-no-one-else who could fit the bill?
Remember how the country wept because Ryan, reluctantly, didn't want to give up his week-ends with his kids to serve, reluctantly, as speaker of the house?
What a guy!
And then he went to work, and soon we saw the Associated Press photo of the new Speaker of the House being clapped on the shoulder, patted on the head, and chucked under the chin, by a beaming Obama, all in presidential gratitude for all Ryan did for the president in passing the Omnibus Bill.
Even Sen. Charles Schumer was surprised, and it's not easy to surprise Chuck. But he was, and he said that the Democrats had gotten more than they had hoped for, with Ryan's help, from that Omnibus Bill.
What was in the 2,000 page bill passed hurriedly, with a two-day review threshold? Let's just say the Democrats and Obama loved it.
It was pure Democratic gold, our gold, lots of money, handed out with scant regard: Funding for the president's DREAMERS; federal grants for Sanctuary Cities; funding for all refugee resettlement in the U.S.; tax credits for illegal immigrants and much, much more.
Sadly, there was no money allocated to finish the wall on the border in accordance with the 2006 Secure Fence Act.
You get the idea.
But there is an up side to all of this. Even if you voted for them, and even though we ended up with Obama for another four years, aren't you glad that the Romney-Ryan team got trounced in 2012?
It's hard to believe, but it could have been worse with them at the helm.
And, by the way, Trump won the debate, again. I wonder why?
Hold the line, America.