Ales Rarus

I tuned into a program that talks to state lawmakers and discusses various issues they're debating. It's interesting, because it's so easy to forget that there are people intensely focused on the needs of a single city or county. But while I conceptually like the program, I was dismayed to see how much they talked about party politics. When they talked about a spending bill or initiative with bipartisan support, it'd always be couched in the form of, "This issue is so obvious that even that party is willing to look at what we've proposed," as if people were shocked—shocked! I say—that the two parties could agree on legislation.

To stop myself from rolling my eyes, I began replacing that party with "Hitler." The show became much more entertaining when I imagined them saying, "I'm working on a spending bill that will cut 50 million from this program. That's a savings we need so desperately that even Hitler will support it!" Because really, that's what it sounded like they wanted to say.

I'm pretty sure most people want to pass good, sound legislation. Can't we do that without all the partisan bickering, especially when the parties agree for once?

Bitterman