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Giving the Blues the blues in Massachusetts
- By Richard Burger
- Published 01/26/2010
- Commentary
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Richard Burger
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There sure were a lot of people talking about what actually caused the majority party to lose the Massachusetts senate seat to the minority party in the special election last week. In the world of politics, and in the world of odds makers, it was a pretty big deal for Scott Brown to beat Martha Coakley.
I had heard a lot of theories about how Scott was able to pull it off, so many theories that it all got to be kind of confusing, so I was glad to hear some reporter ask the president what he thought had happened.
I figured if anyone would know, the president should, and I wasn’t disappointed in that.
He clearly had it all figured out, and he articulated it very succinctly.
The president said what swept Scott Brown into office was the same thing that swept him into office. He said people were angry and frustrated.
The president made it clear, though, that it didn’t have anything to do with him. He said what people were angry and frustrated about wasn’t what’s happened over the last year or two years.
They were angry and frustrated about what’s happened over the last eight years.
Well, I guess that just goes to show how easily I can be fooled. See, I thought it had something to do with the way congress and the white house had basically wasted the first year of the new administration by seeing how many ways they could come up with to camouflage legislation intended to take control of health care in America, regardless of whether or not Americans wanted them to.
I thought people were angry and frustrated because the majority party in the senate and the house seemed to be competing with each other to see which group could come up with the greater number of pages in their bill.
By the way, I think the senate won, with a little over 2,000 pages in at least one of their versions, but it’s hard to be sure. Trying to keep track of all the various versions of the legislation kind of reminded me of the uncertainty principle in quantum physics, the one that says it is impossible to know the position of a particle and its velocity at the same time, because the act of observation changes one or the other.
Every time the majority party came out from behind closed doors, by the time I began to understand where they stood on health-care, they were already speeding off in a different direction.
Anyway, I thought people were angry and frustrated because they were tired of being ignored and disrespected by the people they had elected to represent and protect their interests. Or because they were disgusted with the headlines about the senate and house leadership using taxpayer money to buy the votes needed to pass the bills that no one in congress had the time – or the inclination – to read.
When Scott Brown campaigned on the promise that he would be the 41st vote to stop the senate bill, whatever was in it, I thought it was pretty clear what the voters, in Massachusetts at least, were angry and frustrated about.
But I’m sure you’ve heard as often as I that the president is one of the most politically astute and intelligent chief executives we’ve ever had, so I guess I must be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.
I’ll tell you what, though. I think I’ll give myself the benefit of the doubt, at least for another nine months or so. Call me crazy, but I think Mr. Brown has a message that’s going to give the Blues the blues for some time to come. -RB
I had heard a lot of theories about how Scott was able to pull it off, so many theories that it all got to be kind of confusing, so I was glad to hear some reporter ask the president what he thought had happened.
I figured if anyone would know, the president should, and I wasn’t disappointed in that.
He clearly had it all figured out, and he articulated it very succinctly.
The president said what swept Scott Brown into office was the same thing that swept him into office. He said people were angry and frustrated.
The president made it clear, though, that it didn’t have anything to do with him. He said what people were angry and frustrated about wasn’t what’s happened over the last year or two years.
They were angry and frustrated about what’s happened over the last eight years.
Well, I guess that just goes to show how easily I can be fooled. See, I thought it had something to do with the way congress and the white house had basically wasted the first year of the new administration by seeing how many ways they could come up with to camouflage legislation intended to take control of health care in America, regardless of whether or not Americans wanted them to.
I thought people were angry and frustrated because the majority party in the senate and the house seemed to be competing with each other to see which group could come up with the greater number of pages in their bill.
By the way, I think the senate won, with a little over 2,000 pages in at least one of their versions, but it’s hard to be sure. Trying to keep track of all the various versions of the legislation kind of reminded me of the uncertainty principle in quantum physics, the one that says it is impossible to know the position of a particle and its velocity at the same time, because the act of observation changes one or the other.
Every time the majority party came out from behind closed doors, by the time I began to understand where they stood on health-care, they were already speeding off in a different direction.
Anyway, I thought people were angry and frustrated because they were tired of being ignored and disrespected by the people they had elected to represent and protect their interests. Or because they were disgusted with the headlines about the senate and house leadership using taxpayer money to buy the votes needed to pass the bills that no one in congress had the time – or the inclination – to read.
When Scott Brown campaigned on the promise that he would be the 41st vote to stop the senate bill, whatever was in it, I thought it was pretty clear what the voters, in Massachusetts at least, were angry and frustrated about.
But I’m sure you’ve heard as often as I that the president is one of the most politically astute and intelligent chief executives we’ve ever had, so I guess I must be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.
I’ll tell you what, though. I think I’ll give myself the benefit of the doubt, at least for another nine months or so. Call me crazy, but I think Mr. Brown has a message that’s going to give the Blues the blues for some time to come. -RB