Down, The Sequel

Got myself out of the fetal position long enough to post this addendum to my long anti-Donk missive of yesterday:

House Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall as a reason for putting them in charge of Congress.

Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them. They're also having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls.

The growing resistance to several proposed reforms now threatens passage of a bill that once seemed on track to fulfill Democrats' campaign promise of cleaner fundraising and lobbying practices.

"The longer we wait, the weaker the bill seems to get," said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, which has pushed for the changes. "The sense of urgency is fading," he said, in part because scandals such as those involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Representative Duke Cunningham, R-CA, have given way to other news.

It is to laugh. Also to fuel the burgeoning contempt for the intelligence of the average voter that always threatens to overwhelm me whenever the public buys into to Donk snake oil and puts, and keeps, them in power.

I'm sorry, I really am. I don't want to think lesser of my relentlessly naive countrymen, I really don't. It isn't, all bombast and bravado aside, to build myself up as any kind of all-seeing, all-knowing political svengali, either. I've simply been following politics for twenty-seven years and, like every inch of my not-so-glorious naked body, there are parts of it that are less than entirely savory or appealing, and those are the spots Democrats tend to infest and debase (in politics, not my well-used middle-aged carcass). It just astounds me that anybody can be surprised that Democrats shoveled that "culture of corruption" BS about "lobbying reform" and "earmark reform" long enough to swindle their way back to power, and now that they're securely and sedately re-entrenched, they've tossed their so-called "reform" aside like an empty soda can and dived into the "corruption" mire head-first, there to wallow and frolic like no Republican ever dreamed.

Well, I guess a lot of voters who punched the card/pulled the lever/connected the arrows/beat the bishop/spanked the frank/paddled the pickle/mauled the monkey [*AHEM*, sorry] for the Dems last fall would be surprised if any of them were paying attention to how those same Dems are screwing them and laughing at their gullibility.

THAT's contempt for the intelligence of the average voter. But like the proverbial falling tree in an uninhabited forest, it's making nary a sound.