Big Tent or Big Top

By Paul Peete

All rights Reserved

The Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress by slim majorities, unable to override executive vetoes, is revealing a few tatters in the Democrats “big tent”. On the most important vote of the new Congress, as numerous polls reflect the Iraq war as the most significant issue, the Dems were forced to tack on embarrassing pork to entice enough Democrats to vote for a timetable attached to the war appropriations. Even the Hispanic Caucus is fractured along gender lines as evidenced by the resignations of some of its female members. With a political spectrum as wide as the differences between Murtha and Lieberman positions on the Iraq war, it’s inevitable for rifts to surface from time to time.

Jim Webb, D. VA; former Republican, will differ with Barack Obama D. IL on a number of issues I’m sure; though both are opposed to the President’s mismanagement of the war on terror. Yet the Democrats are entrenched in a battle with their congressional Republican cohorts, so accustomed to following the White House talking points like lemmings; in addition to a President unaccustomed to any dissention in the ranks. The funding of troops disagreement, or the flap over the US attorney firings will in all likelihood wind up in the courts to settle related issues.

That’s when the American People will recognize that we are witnessing a three-ring circus: an isolated Executive Branch, a Supreme Court so tilted to the right through Republican Executive appointments over the past 30 years, and A Democratic Legislative branch unable to effectively counter Bush’s vetoes. The only way to force this circus to fold up its tents is to elect a large enough majority Democratic legislative branch and Democratic president in the ’08 elections. Only then will the Republicans obfuscations yield to the centrist majority in the Democratic Party. As long as the Republicans can block legislation and investigative efforts aimed at holding this president accountable to the American people and not the narrow interests he is currently beholding to, we are trapped at the circus like caged beasts.