Whew, that was some congressional recess, wasn’t it? Any Democrats who thought August was a relaxing, end-of-summer, drink-mojitos-by-the-pool-and-have-a-shocking-affair kind of month were speedily disabused of that notion. Corporate interests, represented by cynical fixers like Dick Armey, poked and prodded people with disinformation until bringing loaded firearms to Dem town hall meetings and drawing a comparison between Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama seemed the sensible thing to do.
And after weeks of tearful, crazed white people lamenting that this wasn’t the America they grew up in (what, with the unsegregated schools and uppity… Canadians… who think they can run things), Sen. Ted Kennedy, champion of universal health care, had to go and die. Things being as they were, the used-to-be-fringe right yelled that his funeral shouldn’t be a political affair, even though his life was political. It was like they were afraid Democrats might suddenly grow a backbone and stand up for something.
They needn’t have worried. Fresh from their summer vacations, Democrats are exactly where they left off nearly 40 days ago: confused, disorganized and afraid of their own shadow. The sound of fearful yelping is as good an indicator that Congress is back in session as anything else.
