Thursday.....Politics.....I'd Rather Read The Book

The issue of the day is the Congressman from South Carolina who called the President of the United States a liar. The issue is not whether or not the statement made was a lie but rather the issue was in the calling, the ignoring decorum. Actually, I'll go a step further. The real issue was in not permitting the long accepted protocol of letting an opponent make his presentation, not using the regular tools of argument, but using the art of presentation itself complete with any stage technique, dramatization or psychological mechanism available. Robert Bork was one of the most capable Supreme Court nominees ever to appear before the Senate. Senator Edward Kennedy, in his presentation to the Senate made the charge that Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is--and is often the only--protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy. When meeting Judge Bork afterwards in a hallway, Senator Kennedy told him, Nothing personal, inferring that it was just a presentation. Whether it is Barack Obama or John McCain, George W. Bush or John Kerry, our national election campaigns and legislative productions give choreographed presentations to a public that has come to expect or demand no more than that. Last night the Congressman did the unthinkable, he interrupted the presentation. Right in the middle of the play, someone from the audience shouted out. The audacity of it all! The authors and director worked hard, this was a Carnegie Hall moment spoiled by riffraff who could not appreciate art. The health care debate, or any of the other prodigiously important issues that will be run by the American public, one after another, in the next few months will, if we do not take advantage of this situation, be settled by presentations and not legitimate debate. So how do we take advantage of the situation? We tackle this bull coming at us by the horns by saying You are giving us a society transforming piece of legislation and expect us to agree to it while the only evidence you offer is an outline, an introduction and a speech. You want to rush this through although you yourself would not purchase a cellphone contract without examining the small print. We want to see every page of the contract before we sign it. We want to be able to ask every question that comes to our mind before you collect your commission. You may have sold the idea to one spouse but not the other. Legislation of this importance needs vetted by every sector of America and in this "age of earmarks" we need to know every group or entity that will profit from it. Constitutional amendments were designed to be a slow process to protect the integrity of the Constitution and likewise, this issue deserves far more than the time allotted for normal legislation. This month of September is scheduled to be one presentation after another and if we are wise, we will say Enough of the screenplay, we've seen it before. We want the book, unabridged, complete with references and bibliography, and we'll write our review after we have finished it and no sooner.