America on the Wrong Track

It's interesting to see Bush's numbers inch up just a fraction. Here's a president who lied about weapons of mass destruction, who led us into an optional war we clearly did not need, who had no plan to win the peace in Iraq, who talks out of both sides of his mouth about democracy, who is not particularly honest or particularly competent, who is dangerously close to leading us into a third war but he launches a third-rate public relations campaign and a few voters who can't be bothered to pay attention throw him a few points. American voters and American politicians have a lot of work to do.

And yet, there appears to be a healthy majority of Americans who have had enough of the current crop of politicians and their philosophy of business as usual. Here's the story from Peter Baker and Claudia Deane of The Washington Post:

Most Americans describe themselves as being in an anti-incumbent mood heading into this fall's midterm congressional elections, and the percentage of people who approve of their own representative's performance is at the lowest level since 1994, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

(snip)

Eighty-one percent of Democrats say the war was not worth fighting, and 70 percent feel that way "strongly." A majority of Democrats, 54 percent, say a candidate endorsing Bush's Iraq policy would be less likely to get their vote, compared with 37 percent for whom it would not make much difference. Two in three Democrats say it is time to begin decreasing troop levels in Iraq, although only one in four supports immediate withdrawal.

Especially worrisome for members of Congress is that the proportion of Americans who approve of their own representative's performance has fallen sharply....

Can anyone pretend that the current Congress is paying attention to Americans except in the most superficial and self-serving way? Both parties have been touched by scandal but the Republicans in particular not only specialize in sweetheart deals for campaign contributors but just seem to go back repeatedly for more of the same.

Democrats are willing to call for investigations and they'll get my vote. Republicans who insist on putting their heads in the sand deserve early retirement if they unable or unwilling to take on the many problems currently facing our country. And Democrats who bask in the glory of Bill Clinton's years in office during the 90s may be in trouble too if they don't start updating their ideas. Bush's fiasco in Iraq is largely the result of ideas decades old. But the world is changing rapidly and even Democrats need new thinking to keep up. Right now, Americans are not finding much leadership in Washington. For the sake of our country, that has to change.