WASHINGTON – It’s the last debate night, this one on foreign policy. So, what to expect? If you put it through the prism of the DNC chairman’s response on the question of Obama’s “kill list,” no one should expect much from the voters. That is, if you actually believe how Ms. Debbie Wasserman Schultz responded in the clip above.
Congress is now a feckless chamber of Executive Branch fluffers, or if you’re in the minority, a hopeless group of obstructionists. Debbie Wasserman Schultz sadly becomes the example of the former, while over the weekend political writers easily revealed Darrell Issa as the latter. The job of Congress isn’t to do either, but instead to represent the people over party loyalty. Today’s members of Congress have forgotten this fact and embarrass themselves daily by either lying to the press and the public or barely hiding their disdain for being asked to confront their own party leader’s betrayal of principles once espoused.
The inability of voters to punish both parties for their lying opportunism remains the biggest impediment for our country.
Glenn Greenwald delivers the same verdict, which came after viewing the clip above showing Wasserman Schultz in a performance of Emmy award winning stature, as she says with a straight face she knows nothing about Obama’s “kill list.”
Anyone who observes politics closely has a very low bar of expectations. It’s almost inevitable to become cynical – even jaded – about just how inept and inane top Washington officials are. Still, even processing this through those lowly standards, I just find this staggering. Staggering and repellent. This is an elected official in Congress, the body that the Constitution designed to impose checks on the president’s abuses of power, and she does not have the foggiest idea what is happening in the White House, and obviously does not care in the slightest, because the person doing it is part of the party she leads.
One expects corrupt partisan loyalty from people like Wasserman Schultz, eager to excuse anything and everything a Democratic president does. That’s a total abdication of her duty as a member of Congress, but that’s par for the course. But one does not expect this level of ignorance, the ability to stay entirely unaware of one of the most extremist powers a president has claimed in US history, trumpeted on the front-page of the New York Times and virtually everywhere else.
Partisans in Congress aren’t worthy of their role in holding the chief executive accountable, no matter the party. Hyper partisans are destroying any hope the American public has of honest debate on the type of people we are electing to the presidency. The lesser of two evils keeping America locked in a downward spiral of the path of least resistance, which has slowly eroded our democratic republic.
That Debbie Wasserman Schultz denied the existence of a “kill list” is typical of a partisan politician, though it’s likely due to the fact that she, personally, hasn’t been briefed on it, giving her cover. So, technically, she isn’t lying or covering or obfuscating or ducking the question, however you want to couch it.
It’s a a three-card monty game of political deceit and both political parties play it, with most American voters not only willing to play the role of sucker, but jumping at the chance to engage in the super bowl of presidential partisan politics. Complete with flag, banner and bumper sticker waving, while partisans squeal their cheers, the average voter just wanting his team to win in the end, never mind our democracy is losing. Even those who rail against the candidates, in the end, come home to the party who continually betrays their trust.
Taylor Marsh, a veteran political analyst and former Huffington Post contributor, is the author of The Hillary Effect, available at Barnes and Noble and on Amazon. Her new-media blog www.taylormarsh.com covers national politics, women and power.