Friday, December 4, 2009

Disgruntlement

I find myself in the new and unsettling position of apologizer. With his usual soaring rhetoric, our president (nee' the candidate) is now using his political capital to sell a war. Without getting in to the merits of it, here to fore, I've been against war. I'm still against war. For any reason, really.

And the energy bill is totally dead weight in the senate right now, vanquished by the healthcare bill. Which in and of itself is currently being beaten in to unrecognizeability by the echo chamber and special interests. And financial reform is basically a joke, which is unfortunate if you want to finance an economy with the industry it's failing to regulate.

On the up side, we're still mostly fighting over things that are bettter then they were eight years ago. But that's pretty weak sauce when most of us went in to this year hoping for Camelot.

So. Camelot it ain't. And it's only likely to get worse before any of this gets better. But.

The economy is showing some signs of life. He did still put $80 billion towards clean energy in his first three months in office, more then anybody ever. He did slow down one war with intention to withdrawl (though like any addict is starting on the next bender before the last one is even properly concluded). He's pushed health care further then anyone ever.

So it's ugly. But pragmacy is both boring and ugly. So maybe there's hope for the future. It won't be Camelot. Chicago, maybe. Corrupt as hell, dirty and sort of unpleasant some of the time, but a good heart, hard working, and at the end of it all still one of the best cities in the world.

I'd take that. But getting there? Nobody likes to watch sausage-grinding.

And I still don't like war.