Congress Meets Its Match (again)

We poor, normal, ordinary mortals who constitute the constituency of our government, daily watch our elected leaders wrestle with mighty and immortal problems. We impute to them great powers of skill, knowledge and understanding that we know we can never have for ourselves. We see them dealing with princes and principalities, nuclear weapons and trips to Mars, millions and billions of dollars, the economy and the military, and we stand in solemn awe and respect of their greatness. It is not until we see them grappling with events we can understand as human beings that we suddenly see how ordinary and lost they are. Such revelation occurred today - twice! We saw them bringing Schaivo and McGuire “before them” to wrestle with their problems. It was not a pretty sight. Schaivo and McGuire presented themselves as two badly brain-damaged people without memory of their past lives, who nonetheless easily demonstrated an ability to still out-maneuver all of congress in both wit and passion. Then they came to serve, each in their own way, and effect a respite for the Administration from the great peace rallies now under way, and also to give DeLay a chance to demonstrate that he really can seem to be a fine Christian gentleman
As far as McGuire is concened, all we can say is “Shame! Shame!” His message is that the steriods “are not important”. He said that if he claimed he did not use them that no one would believe him, and if he said he had used them he would be badgered by government. In other words the truth is just not important. It is not worth that effort to try to solve the problem. Besides he wants his impressive accomplishments to remain in the record books and not be removed - and he certainly dosen't want an asterisk! His message to kids of today is “don’t get caught”. He was telling them: "Only cheat when you have to, then evade when you have to do that; that's cool." How did congress react? They understood. He was speaking their language.
Schaivo’s problem demonstrates what can happen when politics and theology collide. Our founding fathers tried to separate the two not because it was a “goody-goody” thing to do but because the two great forces are mutually exclusive when they play in the same arena. They both need souls to thrive and they both play on the emotions of mankind. When they crash together, only one will remain to rule the survivors.
©John Womack, 2005