Republicans vs. Democrats

It's been clear for years that both political parties have been moving away from the center and attempting to cater to their more extreme bases. The Democrats seem to be unsatisfied with anything less than socialism and the Republicans seem sure that if you don't believe in God and support G.W. Bush then you don't deserve to live in this country. These are the politics we've been used to for at least a decade.

But recently it's been even more skewed than usual. With the 2008 election of Barack Obama, the majority of voting Americans spoke and spoke loudly. The trouble is, I'm not sure they know what they're saying.

President Obama's campaign slogan of 'Yes We Can' doesn't actually mean much. And it doesn't seem to address the much more important question, "Should we?". In fact, the slogan 'Yes We Can' along with 'Hope' seems to me a ploy that teeball coaches use to encourage their 6 year old players. It seems that President Obama really did want to try and bring people together with a unifying theme to his candidacy. At the very least, Obama wanted to push his popularity up to the point where he had plenty of political 'capital' to spend. But to spout platitudes such as these just seems cheap. But hey, people bought it by the millions. P.T. Barnum was right.

Surely Obama knew that as long as he didn't screw anything up that he would be elected president. The writing was on the wall at the end of the Bush presidency. McCain was 4 years too late (at least). The Democrats had won handily in the Congressional elections of 2006, clear sign that the people wanted a party change. The media certainly thought Obama would win. They did everything in their power to all but ensure it. By the tone of their voice, the viewpoint of their stories and the selected coverage, much of the media seemed to be the biggest cheerleaders.

And the Republicans had to have known there was practically no way they were going to win. Naturally, they used what little ammo Obama gave them, such as the famous Preacher speech, but there really wasn't that much there for them to use. Obama had been in the political field for so short a period of time that he hadn't accumulated many skeletons in the closet.

But when the elections were over and Obama sworn in, not too much changed. Our budget deficit nearly tripled, and we threw billions (trillions, eventually) at companies that should have been allowed to fail, but a lot of that happened under Bush's watch. Obama simply raised the stakes.

We're still in Iraq, and will be for the forseeable future. Yes, there's a timeline now, but there was a timeline before, it simply wasn't made public. So not much of a change there. We are putting more troops into Afghanistan, though. I see that as a good thing.

We're still not doing anything about North Korea except stamping our feet on the ground and telling them that they just aren't playing nice. So I don't see too many things that have changed.

But we might see a lot of changes, and soon. Arlen Specter's flip to the Democrat ticket is plainly a move to save his political life. He realized that there was no way he would win next year in the Republican primary, so he decided to switch parties. Of course, I've said Specter was a Democrat for years. The most amazing thing regarding this whole broohah is this: With Specter giving the Democrats 59 seats in the Senate, and the Minnesota race still in the courts, do you know who could give the Democratic Party a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate? Al Franken, that's who.

Now, I'm sure Al's a nice guy. I liked his writing when he was with Saturday Night Live. But do we really want him being the decider as to what passes through the senate? We'll end up with lutefisk on every plate.

With a filibuster-proof Senate, Obama may decide it's time to make Hillary happy and push through socialized medicine. Talk about a lot of people out of jobs. Oh, and taxes will go up, but don't worry, it'll just be on the top 20% income earners. Hmm, I wonder if they'll keep their money in this country when that happens...

In short, it seems that Republicans and Democrats are the same. Except when they're different. I have just one question for all: What the hell are the Libertarians doing? Get off your asses, people!