This morning I published, then promptly deleted, a post about Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, focused on the former’s grumbling about the President (and by inference, the Senate), and the latter’s unexpected slashing of the Baucus-Grassley jobs bill.
Pelosi’s grumbling irritated me, but what irritated me even more was this interpretation of her grumbling …
“What you’re seeing now in public has been building in private,” said a top House Democratic official. “House members did their work — they did everything the president asked of them. And it gets stuck in the Senate. Or the Senate screws it up.”
At first, I read that as the Speaker blaming others for the failure of the Democrats’ agenda. And that angered me because, while she did her job, guiding (strong-arming) multiple installments of major legislation through the House, did she really think the much-more-conservative, filibuster-prone Senate would just take her bills and accept them, any more than she’d do the same in reverse?
But then I thought, what the hell? Why am I lashing out? My assumptions about Pelosi, in this instance, are based primarily on the unverified opinion of an un-named source quoted in one article. Again: What the hell?
Similar situation with Reid. His decision to trim a bill that had a seemingly reasonable chance of, not minor, but significant bipartisan support was, on the surface, infuriating; even more so after I read Morrissey’s take, in particular, his prediction that this move by Reid could kill any chance of bipartisan support for the bill.
“I think Reid saw the writing on the wall,” said one top Senate Democratic aide. “This was about to get bogged down again so he pulled it back.”
I know: That’s yet another unverified opinion from an un-named source in one article. Still, it made me think: Maybe Sen. Reid rightly estimated the depth of progressive Democrats’ concerns and thus realized this presumed “sure thing” of a bill was nothing of the sort. And that, in turn, led him to do the only thing he could do in the situation: seek a course correction.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fan of Reid or Pelosi, and I’m not trying to defend or excuse them. They’re in the big leagues. They’re perfectly capable of mounting their own defenses and articulating their own excuses. Instead, my point in sharing all of this actually has very little to do with Reid and Pelosi. Rather, my point is a question; make that two questions: First, why was I so quick to jump to anger? Second, why am I unable to sustain that anger?
Some possible answers.
On the first question: We’re all angry. These are frustrating, anxious times. Yet no one, certainly no one in our political leadership, seems capable of behaving like an adult for more than a few seconds at a time; except maybe the President, and he seems so detached so often that we wonder if he grasps just how frazzled the rest of us are.
On the second question: Anger is exhausting. We’ve been screaming and shouting at each other and our political leaders for … what now? Six years? 10? More? When does this stop? When do we finally say, OK, you know what, it just doesn’t matter anymore. Yes, Republicans screwed up royally for eight years. Yes, Democrats misread a mandate they didn’t have and now seem to be as incapable of governing as their counterparts were. Fine. They’re all imperfect and prone to error. We’re all imperfect and prone to error. Let’s move on.
But when? When do we move on? When do the “gotcha’s” stop? When do we have the frickin’ deceny to say enough is enough, sing “kum ba yah,” engage in a really awkward and terribly uncomfortable group hug, agree to disagree on the things we’ll never agree on, and then start focusing on what we do agree on?
Seriously. I’d like an answer.