2009 may not have been the Republican Party’s finest hour, but it wasn’t like the Democratic Party was a shining beacon of integrity and intelligence, either. The party who owns the Hill sat on their hands as Rep. Chuck Rangel proved himself to be perhaps the most corrupt member of Congress, allowing him to keep his chairmanship on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Speaking of corruption, it should have been no surprise that Max Baucus, a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance lobby, didn’t have an ethical compass when it came to recommending U.S. Attorneys, either. For an organization supposedly running the show, it sure didn’t seem like it. Democrats still cowered stupidly, afraid to assert themselves against Republicans and Blue Dogs in some matters, afraid to cross wealthy special interests in others. Their leaders lacked substance and grit.
The party’s predicament was most painfully evident with the protracted (some might say unending) health care saga. No matter what they did, the chances of passing legislation that fixed a broken system diminished with each bang of the gavel. They gave concessions to Blue Dogs Democrats determined to control the discourse to no avail, pushed for a mandate that could only make them less popular and tried to win over an opposition party that make it abundantly clear their number one priority was making sure nothing happened. They cowered when well-organized opposition astroturfing temporarily shut down debate of any kind, only gradually pushing against overheated rhetoric. They dawdled, hemmed and hawed, removing anything that sounded remotely beneficial to the public welfare at every opportunity.
For reasons that could only make sense in Washington, D.C., Democrats tried to legislate from a false center, ignoring the progressive agenda the American people voted for. They couldn’t even take advantage of the situation when the insurance lobby grossly overstepped its bounds. They watered down the health care plan further in the name of one-vote “bipartisanship”, and comprised the public option, itself a compromise from a single-payer system. Conservadems helped a draconian anti-abortion measure piggyback on the House bill, while Senator Ben Nelson openly slowed down the process to confer with Catholic Bishops. Regardless of what came out of Joe Lieberman’s mouth, Democrats continued to caucus with him. By this time, the party was in such disarray that Harry Reid could look strong-ish – and even then, the ex-boxer still couldn’t do tough right.
While his party withered on the vine, president Obama governed cautiously. His administration was not the agent of “change” he had promised his country so much as one of Clintonian triagulation, viewing liberals with suspicion and contempt. His stimulus package may have made a crippling recession less worse, but with top economic advisor Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in power, not much else happened. Indeed, it was a well-known secret that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel moved Geithner’s arms and legs like a marionette. Any movement toward reform stalled for fear Wall Street might not like it. In military matters, Obama wouldn’t touch Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell with a ten-foot pole, and held off making a decision on Afghanistan only to change policy on the war there very little. He fetishized forging a third way with his political enemies and seemed ineffectual in the face of head-on attacks. Despite the wasted potential of his first year in office, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Seriously.
The culture wars raged on far from the Eastern Seaboard. The failures of gay civil rights leaders prior to the passage of Proposition 8 were laid bare, exposing the dumb complacency that led to the loss of marriage equality in California. Orson Scott Card continued to shit on his literary legacy with his virulent gay bashing; Miss Carrie Prejean, on the other hand, made a career from it. A white guy dressed as a 70s-era pimp exposed ACORN for what it was – only what it was wasn’t entirely clear, as the damning videotapes he provided turned out to have been heavily edited. Much ado was made about Michael Phelps’ recreational use of marijuana, but normal people with common decency scored a rare victory in the end. The American Family Association, strangers to decency common or otherwise, called for a boycott of delicious Pepsi. The line between Boy Scouts and paramilitary organizations all but disappeared as youngsters learned how to hunt illegals for God and Country. Even immigrants here legally were encouraged to Be American by changing their names to something white people can pronounce, and still this might not stop them from being viewed as criminals by the Caucasian majority.
When the gradual passage of time scabs over this year’s fresh wounds, we will remember 2009 as the year the monied elite refined their methods for fucking the common man over while simultaneously striving to calm the angry mob with idiotic justifications for its own knavery. We’ll think of parenting not just bad, but beyond the pale. If we dwell on such matters, we’ll say it was a year for having an inflated sense of self-importance, and not being afraid to share that regard with the world. It was a year a bunch of guidos tried to control what was – or wasn’t – on New Jersey women’s groins, and a year an especially crazy protester blamed Steven King for the shooting death of John Lennon’s. In the span of 365 days, a lot was done to worsen our condition and lower mankind’s collective IQ. Even in the distant future, we’ll feel relieved that 2009 wasn’t a leap year.
