RepreZENT-ehn

My senator is a gang member wannabe.


Maybe he heard that the Bloods  and the Crips had formed their own constituency group.


For years it seems he has had a yearning to slick back his duck tail and don the trappings of one or another Senate Gang.

You've heard of the various senate gangs.  Being apparently void of any imagination, they tend to call them by numbers:  Gang of 14, Gang of 12, Gang of 10, Gang of 6 ....

Those last two, they are the ones my senator - Saxby Chambliss - has been involved with; in fact, word on the street is that he possibly now runs the Gang of Six.

And just what is that these gangs do?

Well we don't really know, but it appears that they meet somewhere in the cavernous catacombs of Washington establishment and wield power.  Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, once referred to one of these gangs as the "Masters of the Universe".

I think they are supposed to be revered as a somehow more elite microcosm of the entire senate.  Select statesmen endued with a more immense portion of that Senatorial magic dust  known as compromise.

In reality, they are often a roadblock to any real progress.  It was Senator McCain's Gang of 14 that stymied what appeared to be the semblance of manhood among the Republican 109th Senate. 

Then Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist (R-Tenn) was poised to actually make a stand against Democrat filibuster threats that were holding up Presidential judicial appointees in an unprecedented way.  Then came the Gang of 14 and mired up the works. 
The frailty of that majority and their unwillingness to stand and fight for right principles led to their dissolution in the following election cycle.

That's what senate gangs do: unlike street gangs- they stop fights.  They muddy up the waters and add additional confusing layers to an already leviathan-like process.

Sometimes people in leadership should make a principled stand for what's right.

I have expressed that sentiment in communications with my senator.  His Gang of 10 pretty much stalemated action on drilling for oil that last time gas prices got up around $4.  The crisis abated briefly and now we are back to higher and higher gas prices, because no one made a stand for the right.

Frankly, I don't know what his current gang is doing, but you can bet it wreaks of compromise and at best it's result will be futile.

Before he "fell in with the wrong crowd" I was really proud of my senator from Georgia.  He was a strong voice in favor of President Bush's military policy and tax cuts.

But he began to slip, in my estimation, when he hesitated far too long before coming out against the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007.  Then he really "tore his britches" with me when both he and Johnny Isaakson (our other Georgia Senator) voted for TARP I. 

It was the Republican version of nationalizing industries.

He defended his actions then - owing to his own private knowledge as a Senator of just how bad the crisis might have been.  To my knowledge, he has never recanted.

Now it seems he is lost to the mob; doomed to a political career of initiations and rumbles.  However, the only fatalities in this brand of gang-bang war tend to be progress toward a brighter future for America.  At least they are not a violent bunch... they don't pack heat or employ switchblades - they just talk things to death.

Yes, my senator is a gangster.

I guess we can't really blame him for going astray... it's not all his fault; it's the company he keeps.
Why in our capitol it has become perfectly acceptable - even fashionable- to gang up in small groups  ...away from the public eye ... and make a lot of decisions based on compromise and "one hand washing the other", then to emerge and inflict your decisions on the republic.

We used to have folks that would stand up for "we the people"... in fact our system was designed that way.  The Judicial system would check the power of the other two branches if they didn't police one another.  That failing, we had the Republicans or even some Democrats (long, long ago) who would stand up for common sense and truth.  Finally, we had the press - the "guardians of the public trust" - but no more.

I guess its just easier to go along with the crowd, but we need someone up there to speak for us.  We don't need any more gangs in the Senate because apparently the Washington crowd is a gang all their own.  Unfortunately, many of the folks we sent there to represent us against "all enemies foreign and domestic" ...have sided with the enemies.