Reply #57: "I feel that we're becoming more divided every day." [View All]

[amandabeech]

And disconnected at the same time. That sums up the Dems and the country.

I'm looking for someone, anyone, to just stand up there and tell the truth without triangulating or thinking about what the campaign donors or the media will say. Or for that matter, what anybody will say. If someone would just stand up and tell some truth or even just ask some decent questions.

Take the Senate hearings this week on the war.

There was a lot of speechifying, but not a lot of tough questions and real answers. The only real q & A for me was Warner asking Petraeus whether all this Iraq nonsense was making the country safer. And Petraeus said he didn't know. I wanted more! Warner's not running for office again. Are lame ducks the only ones who will speak out at all? For heaven's sake, what have we come to?

I don't think that U.S. voters are that shallow and stupid, at least not the ones who actually go to the polls and vote. Just level with us. We know that things are bad. Just talk to us.

You mentioned big money. I think that big money campaign contributions have a lot to do with the inability of candidates to address the problems because the big money doesn't like to hear that it's screwed up. Since the Supreme Court has declared spending money on politics to be the equivalent of free speech, then I support a well-thought out Constitutional amendment that would open the doors for campaigns supported only by public funds. I have not heard much ruckus about something to actually fix the problem, just a lot of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth, as usual. I don't favor lots of amendments to the venerable document, but things have gone completely out of control to the point that the government is unworkable. One of the founders, when asked what form of government is the best, replied something like, "A Republic, if you can keep it." Or so my aging memory says. Well, founder, we're not keeping it right now. Not here and not anywhere.