Another Take on the Dirty Deal

Loyal reader RB makes me wonder whether I need to make this a group blog, if only for priceless observations like this one...

In "Attack of the Clones," the Republic and the Jedi called upon the clone
army to save the day.

Ultimately, this same army was their undoing.

In Congress, a group of moderates (some of whom have invoked pathetic Star
Wars analogies) united to defeat the "nuclear" option. With any luck, this will
be their undoing.

As the nuclear option drew near, many on the left (example) have invoked the classic movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", where Jimmy Stewart's character (Jefferson Smith) filibusters until another senator (Senator Joseph Paine) tries to shoot himself. The scene was dramatic. Jimmy Stewart standing, sweating, exhausted. Struggling to utter each additional syllable as he continued talking for hours and hours, yielding the floor only for an occasional question. Here is the difference: if someone wants to talk, debate, read Betty Crocker recipes, I might support the filibuster. That is not what they do. A filibuster no longer requires a congressman to stand there talking. It is a fiction - an illusion. In fact, the filibuster has become like the war in Star Trek episode 23 "A Taste of Armageddon."

Beaming to the surface with a landing party, Kirk and Spock are met by a young woman, Mea 3, who tells them that Eminiar VII has been at war with its neighboring planet, Vendikar, for over 500 years. Mea 3 takes them to the council chambers where they find banks of computers. Eminiar's head council Anan 7 informs them that the two planets have learned to avoid the complete devastation of war because computers are used. When a "hit" is scored by one of the planets, the people declared "dead" willingly walk into antimatter chambers and are vaporized.

Wars and filibusters are messy for a reason. They should not be entered
into lightly. When you make the process of either painless, there is no
disincentive to undertaking them.

Apparently, the inspiration for this bit of prose came from Peggy Noonan's piece at Opinion Journal. Here's the part I enjoyed...

I think everyone in politics now has been affected by the linguistic sleight-of-hand, which began with the Kennedys in the 1960s, in which politics is called "public service," and politicians are allowed and even urged to call themselves "public servants." Public servants are heroic and self-denying. Therefore politicians are heroic and self-denying. I think this thought has destabilized them.

People who charge into burning towers are heroic; nuns who work with the poorest of the poor are self-denying; people who volunteer their time to help our world and receive nothing in return but the knowledge they are doing good are in public service. Politicians are in politics. They are less self-denying than self-aggrandizing. They are given fame, respect, the best health care in the world; they pass laws governing your life and receive a million perks including a good salary, and someone else--faceless taxpayers, "the folks back home"--gets to pay for the whole thing. This isn't public service, it's more like public command. It's not terrible--democracies need people who commit politics; they have a place and a role to play--but it's not saintly, either.

I don't know if politicians have ever been modest, but I know they have never seemed so boastful, so full of themselves, and so dizzy with self-love.

Then again, some would argue that I'm boastful, full of myself and dizzy with self-love. Except I'm not in politics... even though I'm apparently qualified.