What's Tony Thinking

Oh, for Goodness Sake!

That was as close as my Aunt Margaret came to swearing. “Oh, for goodness sake!” Occasionally, it was “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I can still see her furrowed brow, the darkened cloud of her countenance, as she contemplated some bit of human foolishness or stupidity.

My language for the folks in Congress is less restrained.

The congresswoman from California, Jackie Speier — who I think is great — once observed that Washington, D. C. is like “Hollywood, for people that aren’t all that good looking.”

It certainly does seem that these folks will do almost anything to garner our attention.

Wheeling the nation up to the precipice of default has become as predictable as fish on Friday once was in the school cafeteria.

Now, it’s the intra-Democratic Party jousting as moderates and progressives try to impale one another over the bi-partisan infrastructure bill, and its more ambitious Build Back Better follow-up.

The only problem with all this simultaneously infuriating and boring drama is that the outcomes actually do matter. Put it this way, the outcome that matters is whether the Democrats, now in precarious control, of both the legislative and executive branch can actually get anything done. If not, Trump and his demonic spawn wait in the wings.

Such was the point of Thomas Friedman’s column two days ago. The Democrats may now fiddle and posture and fritter away their short window of opportunity for demonstrating that they can actually pass legislation and govern. Friedman concludes with a telling observation from the Minnesota Congressman,  Dean Phillips.

“The absence of pragmatism among Democrats is as troubling as the absence of principle among Republicans.”

Oh, for goodness sake!

Will you people please get over yourselves and make some progress so that we don’t have the specter of Trump 2.0 staring us in the face in 2024?