Send in the clowns

You gotta laugh. Well if it wasn’t so tragic in reality, you would have to laugh at these clowns, that’s for sure. Their shenanigans are widely reported. They make funny faces for the cameras. They say silly things about one another. They do not accomplish anything serious, and they try to put on a great show. I am not talking about the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. No sir, I am talking about the 112th Congress. These are the fine folks who have been playing tricks on the American public all season. Despite their efforts, or perhaps because of them, they have been dubbed the “worst Congress ever.” You may find 14 good reasons in the Washington Post.
While the country has a whole host of problems, mostly economic, the House of Representatives decided this past week to take a vote to Repeal the Affordable Healthcare law. This would be the somewhat controversial law that tries to extend health insurance coverage to more Americans. What is the problem with that, you may ask? The problem may be the price tag, since the clowns feel it is better for Americans to wait until they are critically ill and show up in emergency rooms without any coverage. Then doctors will take care of them and the clowns think that must be free. Free is good because we have so many other bills. Unfortunately for us all, this charade will accomplish nothing. It was the 33rd vote to repeal and it has no chance in the Senate, again. Since the Supreme Court has upheld most of the law, the red clowns continue to see red, while the rest of the country and the blue clowns feel rather, uh…blue.
While each set of clowns may think their act is playing well in the heartland, they may be surprised to learn that a Gallup Poll in 2010 showed BP Oil, after the worst oil spill in our nation, was not as unpopular as the CBS/New York Times poll shows Congress to be now. That’s right! After all those pictures of Gulf of Mexico waters, beaches, birds and fish covered in oil, BP was more popular than the current Congress. While BP put Gulf fisherman and resort towns out of work, it was nothing compared to the perception that this Congress is keeping many Americans from getting back to work after the terrible recession (depression?). This is no way to run a circus!
Don’t be fooled by the words of your favorite blog, vlog or drunken neighbor, the blue clowns are just as funny as the red clowns. The blue clowns have stopped proposing the blue budget, perhaps because they do not want to make you any more, uh…blue than you already are. In order to make sure we can all sing the blues together, the red clowns have done something very amusing. They have brought the blue budget to Congress, leaving the blue clowns with the, uh…well you know. Despite all the horn honking, nose pulling, seltzer-down-your-pants antics, this group has managed to pass the least amount of legislation of any Congress since at least 1947.
If you made the rounds of the news sites and major blogs this past week the theme was clear. The Maddow Blog posted “Worse. Congress. Ever.” The Huffington Post naturally bounced on the Washington Post story. The National Journal is not exactly right there with the liberal media, they think that if this is indeed the worst Congress, then it follows “that we are the worst American electorate–ever.” Perhaps we are, but we could only choose between red clowns and blue clowns. So what are the polarized populace to do?
Perhaps you may feel that what we need in all this mess is something to smile about. “Send in the clowns,” you might sing. “Don’t bother, they’re here.”

picture making the rounds on facebook