No Exit

The American voter is sometimes as fickle as a spoiled teenage girl, waiting until Friday to confirm her Saturday night plans, in case she gets a better offer. Can it be only two years ago that We the People voted for overwhelming change and activist government? Now we're ready to hand control back to the politicians that nearly took us to the brink?

I wonder whether we deserve the democracy that prior generations sweated, sacrificed, and died for. We are not a serious people these days---seemingly unthinking, reactive, with short memories.

Or on the other hand maybe it's an expression of impatience and good judgment. Heck, we gave the Democrats everything they asked for---overhelming control of Congress and the Presidency. And 2 years later we have a moribund economy, an aimless war, and business as usual in Washington: endless squabbling over the fine points as the bigger challenges remain unaddressed.

A bigger bunch of losers we haven't seen since perhaps the Hoover era or the post Civil War Reconstruction period. Then, as now, the country was being gang raped by powerful economic interests never held accountable by the political classes.

OK so if the political calculation is let's box in Obama with a Republican Congress and two years of paralysis, then run against a lackluster record in 2012....can we really afford slow-mo now?

Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

"Enfer, c'est les autres."