The Blank Check Congress'

I have written before that instead of trying to navigate the warren of defense and intelligence rabbit holes our government operates, either get it down to where and for what does money go or cut it off entirely until the establishment can get its house in order. Earlier this summer under the mantle of national security, Congress voted to give the White House $400 million for "special operations" in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other distant locales.

I have also written that our Congress should be turned over in full in the fall election. Why Senators Reid (D-NV) and Rockefeller (D-VA) should vote through another round of our hard-earned dollars to this White House after all that's happened rankles, let alone disgraces their offices and that of House Speaker Pelosi (D-CA). At a time when this nation is going through such trying and uncertain economic trouble, what arrogant gall do they have to write more blank checks for situations whose bottom line has been disappointing for years. Sure, Al-Qa'ida has taken some licks and the Taliban has been moved out of their strongholds in Kandahar. But they're still around and the Taliban's presence, more so than Al-Qa'ida's, guarantees a lengthy stay for America in the Stans. With successes that have only chased, dented and then reenergized these groups, its time the massive amounts doled out for these middling efforts to be reappropriated to areas where there is real value for the bucks, not just alleged value. If the defense establishment and civilian leaders expect billions then they should make sure their plans have better than a 50/50 shot at succeeding and their objectives are within the realm of feasibility, not high-brow presidential rhetoric (combating terror, got them on the run, scattering the leadership).

As much a discouragement the Bush administration has been, Congress' eagerness to throw money around, this after running the previous body out of office with pitchforks and torches while they decried their free-spending ways, is equally cavalier, and the fact that so much has been approved under the blanket term "national security" should anger taxpayers. For Congress, it should be just as outraged considering how much of what they went along with turned out to barely resemble what they voted for and, often, proved to be disastrous for national morale and the nation's reputation.

Despite statements from Reid, Rockefeller and Pelosi, they are just as bad as the administration. Their politics may be a different breed, but the attitude is nearly the same after all the screaming and condemning ceases. There's the national interest and national security and then there's politics and pandering, something both parties have pledged to remove from government during their revolutions (1994, 2006-2008) and seem to prove as hollow talking points just as soon as they get comfortable in their new offices.

John