Defense Secretary Gates thinks the Iraq surge is working but is not sure about a troop draw-down. The NATO alliance is falling apart in Afghanistan. Iran has test-flown a ballistic rocket with an estimated range of 2000 miles. Hugo Chavez threatens to cut off oil shipments to the U.S. A rebel group has seized control of much of Chad. Riots have broken out in Kenya. The Darfur human rights disaster continues. North Korea’s agreement to suspend its nuclear program is on hold. Thousands of Burmese are fleeing into Thailand. In the U.S., a bitterly divisive presidential election seems unavoidable.
And what do you suppose our Congressional representatives are preoccupied with today?
What Capitol Hill hearings fill our television screens this morning? What important topic has brought the entire news-gathering community and their cameras to the hearings chamber?
War? Taxes? The recession? None of the above. Our elected representatives are holding forth on issue of whether a baseball pitcher named Roger Clemens ever used performance-enhancing drugs.
One after another, these stalwarts do their best to project a sense of gravity during hearings that serve no discernible purpose other than to allow them to project a sense of gravity. Do these people really think the state of the nation hinges on whether Roger Clemens used HGH? Representative John Tierney is today’s poster boy for this kind of nonsense, possibly because Tierney (D-MA) senses that there are some votes to be had in grilling a member of the Yankees. Tierney is now outraged, now righteous; see his face redden as he pursues his quarry. What a hambone!
It would be refreshing to hear Senator Clinton or Obama or McCain promise to restore a sense of priorities in Washington and stop these circuses, but it won’t happen. They know that most people would rather watch a Congressional version of American Idol than a serious discussion of world affairs. It is our priorities that are screwed up, not Congress’s.
