Fools of a took

A few weeks ago, the Democrats won their struggle to get the health care bill through the Senate . And I mean “won” as in “entirely lost sight of their original plans and produced a victory that is unintelligible to the American public.”

On “Countdown,” Rachel Maddow announced the bill’s passage and smirked like a librarian who had just reinvented the Dewey Decimal System. She seemed happy so I guessed I should be, too. I tried to reach down into my soul and pull out a sense of elation. Instead, the dark devil of reason appeared on my shoulder and snickered, “You fool! This is a false hope! That girl you’ve been chatting with on Facebook isn’t into you either.”

The Democrats were handed the keys to the kingdom, a super-duper majority that should have allowed them to pass laws like the Bush Administration in its prime. If Barack Obama rallying the populace is akin to Aragorn uniting the armies of men against Sauron/McCain, Nancy Pelosi and company are the hobbits struggling to drop a ring in a hole. They’re there at the top of the cliff, a nation waiting on their success whilst they wrestle with the equivalent of an old homeless man.

I’d continue the metaphor with a weak connection to the upcoming Super Bowl saving us like the mighty eagles did in the book, but Philadelphia was eliminated from the playoffs last week. I still believe in Obama, but maybe his Fellowship isn’t up to the job. Also, Lieberman is Saruman or something.

Unless the left can pull some drastic changes in the next few months, they are going to get hit bad in the 2010 elections, and they’ll deserve it. That’s not to say the Republicans have earned the seats they’ll take, as they’ve mostly been doing everything they can to impede Democrat accomplishments for this very purpose.

It’s been clear for a while that the parties care more about petty battles than the actual talking points they champion.

So what are you, able-bodied young voters, supposed to do? Vote for the lesser of two evils?

I propose a much bolder idea: vote against the incumbent and anyone older than the age of 35. That’s a five-year space of potential candidates for senators, 10 for representatives.

I’m not trying to be anti-establishment for the sake of fashion; I was never one for safety pins, black fingernail polish and Sex Pistols patches. We have an epidemic of thought in our country’s politics where games of spite, lobbyists and job perks are hindering any real progress.

If we can effectively purge our system of the infection, as if detoxing from a long college career of partying, maybe that’s when the change we voted for in 2008 will take place. Perhaps a House full of optimistic youth from both parties won’t be corrupted by the 10 to 20 years most politicians take to rise to the top.

Once they’ve written some good bills, then we send them the hookers and drugs.