Congress: the joke's on us

I never thought I’d say this, but the US Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid makes me yearn for the days of Dennis Hastert. And I gather the vast majority of my fellow citizens feel the same way since Congress’ approval rating is at an all-time low of 14%! [You could get 14% approval for Attila.-ed. He gets 30%.]

This should give a little pause to those Democratic Party triumphalists who think their crowd is going to waltz into the White House in ’08. But that’s the least of it. The more important question is why our government is run by such dimwitted mediocrities on both sides of the aisle. I have written before that Silvestre Reyes is the poster child of our Congress – a man who, as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee [sic], couldn’t tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite. And he’s still in office! Think about that, those of you who run businesses large and small. As CEO of Pajamas Media, if one of our editors were that uniformed at this point in history I would have no choice but to show him or her the door (not that any of our editors are even remotely that ignorant).

The comparison between government and business has been made many times before and I used to give government the benefit of the doubt. And I am still convinced that there are many things government does better than the private sector, things that it must do. But if government is run by the likes of Pelosi, Reid, Reyes and Hastert, then Heaven help us.

The first thing we need to deal with this is term limits. Government has become a sinecure for the inept. We already have a two-term limit on the Presidency. Similar limits on the House and Senate would be just fine. Of course, we all know such limits stand little chance of passing. The incumbents, on both sides of the aisle, want to stay in office for life. This is most probably an example of how our elected officials are in complete opposition to the will of the people. Given the results of the Gallup Poll linked above, what do you think the percentage of the populace is that would support term limits? My guess is something close to 86% (with the usual margin of error).