THE WASHINGTON COLISEUM, AHEM

Who was it who said that politics is not for the faint of heart?

It is no surprise to anyone who follows the day-to-day machinations of our politicians that American politics has become a blood-sport.

Not that the game of politics has ever been a stroll in the park; it hasn’t. But something sinister has invaded our political discourse of late, and that something is tearing our country apart.

What is that something?

Negativity.

In fact, negativity has viralled into all aspects of American life.

America has become a nation obsessed with what’s wrong with our country rather than what’s right. As a country we see the glass as half-empty rather than as half-full. We find the worst trends in a poll that might actually have small indications of better days ahead and we glom onto them. We rub our hands together with glee when the opposition is one-upped.

We’ve become like the uncivilized in the stands of the Roman Coliseum, watching the gladiators fight to the death, shouting “Kill, kill, kill.”

Transfixed by the Boob Tube we find joy in the on-air barkers, also known as political pundits, as they tear the opposition to shreds with clever but mean-spirited and highly-negative silver tongues.

In most ways, we can blame this pessimistic ailment on our contemptuous leaders. But we must also blame ourselves for allowing our politicians to lead us down this path of unrighteousness.
Yes, there are those who are angry with the ugliness that has become the norm on Capitol Hill. The Tea Party movement formed in response to current Washington ways. But like the old guard on Capitol Hill, this new group quickly became part of the establishment, screaming about what is wrong with Washington rather than what is right.

We just celebrated Labor Day, officially the start of the 2012 campaign. Congress comes back into session later this week. If you thought things were negative before, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Despite this country’s huge economic woes, we are about to watch our politicians descend into the depths of political darkness. Such a descent could prove catastrophic to a country already in its darkest days since The Great Depression.

On Thursday night President Obama will present his plan to solve the job crisis to a joint session of Congress. Is there doubt in anyone’s mind that the following day the Republican opposition will be hitting the airwaves and the editorial pages of our major newspapers spewing their negativity on the president’s ideas in an effort to destroy his presidency?

Which makes me wonder what the opposition could accomplish if the Republicans took all their negative energy focused on thwarting President Obama’s efforts at every turn, and turned it to the positive.

What a novel idea for a party and a politician: Winning an election or a political argument by putting forth a positive agenda! Of course, in fact, they’d most probably lose if they did. Politicians reflect the people. These days the people would rather watch a gladiator combat than a beauty contest, which for a time was the criterion for electing our leaders and a part of what got this nation into the negative place that is.

Oy, another negative thought. But, forgive me for being just one more of those cynical political pundits.

Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. She is the co-host of the popular The Halli and MoJoe Show on BlogTalkRadio airing Sunday 5 PM/EST. To read more of her musings visit her @ The CJ Political Report dot com and Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

ONCE UPON A TIME AND NOT SO LONG AGO

Once upon a time -- and that was not so long ago -- former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney would have been considered the Republican Party’s perfect presidential candidate.
Tall and handsome, making him telegenic, wealthy, bright, accomplished, Romney is a fine family man still married to his high school sweetheart after 42 years, the father of five and now a grandpa with a coterie of cute grandchildren to exploit.

Politically, Romney offers something for everyone. As a moderate Conservative, he appears reasoned rather than dogmatic, and appeals to a wide swath of voters. But that was once upon a time, and that seems, oh, so, long ago before two extremes took over the Republican Party: The Christian Right and the even further to the right the off-the-charts Tea Party/Libertarian Bowel Movement of a party now controlling the GOP.

The Grand Old Party is no longer grand; it is dysfunctional. Worse, it is OLD. It operates in its own world, one that denies that the social revolutions of the Sixties ever occurred but rues the day that they did. Once the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower -- the party of grand ideas -- the GOP has become the party of only one idea: reduce the size of the Federal Government. It is the party of Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Tim Pawlenty -- a vice president, by the way, if ever there was one --- and the appalling Paul duo, Ron and Rand.

Ron Paul advocates eliminating all foreign aid, Gingrich is a self-serving serial philanderer. Palin and Bachman share more than their gender identification: They both play to the lowest common denominator preying on the beleaguered masses, spewing their brand of Conservatism that takes the best of Republicanism and turns it into a weapon to control the downtrodden. In the 2012 race for the Republican nomination, we have the class of the 1.800.GOP.BABES, 1.800.GET.A.BABE, 1.800.SAYNO2GOVERNMENT,1.800...well, you get the idea.

Which takes me back to the candidacy of Mitt Romney and of any other moderate Republican who might choose to run for the party's nomination: I FEEL YOUR PAIN! Your own party has placed you in an untenable situation. In order to get your party's nomination, you have to play to the whack-a-doodle base that votes in your primaries. But to win the general election, you have to appeal to the thoughtful and reasoned. Good luck with that.

Last week, I derided Mitt Romney for being a poor panderer. I made the observation that he is too obvious in his pandering. "Maybe if this guy would just take a course in sincerity he might get somewhere. Somebody out there, help this guy, puleeze," I pleaded.

And then I thought about what I had said. I thought that maybe the fact that Romney is a lousy panderer is actually a good thing, a reflection of the decent character that is in fact the man. Maybe he's another George Washington: He cannot tell a lie.

Alas, once upon a time and not so long ago that thought wouldn’t have seemed so farfetched. It might have been considered a grand old idea… once upon a time oh-so-painfully-long ago when running for the presidency wasn’t a business but a calling of decent men.


Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows and the co-host of A PINT OF PLAIN AND POLITICS on Blog Talk Radio. Her novel, SCOUT FINCH'S DIARY is about to be published. You can read more of her musings @ The CJ Political Report dot com.

OBAMA, HIGH ANXIETY AND MEL BROOKS

America is in the midst of a giant anxiety attack!

Really, it’s true. You can feel it. It’s palpable. You can see it in people’s face. No one is smiling anymore. No one is looking anyone in the eye. Run into an old friend at the supermarket and you get first, a furtive glance, then maybe a tentative hello, and finally, a pouring out of all the tumult in his life.

Stand in line at your local Wal-Mart, the place where the rich meet the poor these days, and listen to virtual strangers pour their hearts out. Everyone has a story about their spouse losing a job, or their investments going south, their kid or grand-kid not being able to find a job. They have to sell their home in a hurry because they are over-leveraged. Retirement isn’t happening any time soon.

So it is no surprise that exit polls in this off-year election showed that most people were casting their votes because of their pocket books and the fact that nothing was in them. Yes, according to the pollsters, mostly what is bothering American voters these days is their financial situation. All their woes stem from that.

Costs are rising, but investment income is down. If you run a small business, your accounts pay late. If you need a bridge loan from the bank, fer git about it! Insurance premiums continue to rise, fuel, too. Ten percent of Americans are out of a job, and that number is depressingly a low-ball figure. In other words, for Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe, life isn’t a box of chocolates, Forrest Gump.

Valium anyone?

How did this happen? Just a year ago Americans were filled with the newly-elected Barack Obama’s hope and dreams for a better future. Even if you weren’t a believer, you couldn’t help being hopeful that Mr. Obama would prove, finally, to be a new and different politician. Then, too, we’d been down so long there seemed no place to go but up. Of course, the bottom fell out and here we are.

Oxycontin, Rush Limp-baugh Limbaugh?

TARP saved the banks and Obama saved the auto industry, but ain’t anyone out there lookin’ out for the little people. And no one on Capitol Hill seems in much of a hurry to do so. Health Care reform legislation that was supposed to help you and me has been pared down to what amounts to insurance reform. And although President Obama promised us health care legislation by the early fall, Majority Leader Harry Reid now says no one should expect a vote in the Senate until 2010.

Here, have some Prozac.

Apparently, President Obama has. Our President, the one and only Barack Obama, once heralded as the great communicator, able to leap tall buildings in a single bounce seems anesthetized and is bizarrely missing from America’s conversation.

While the rest of us agitate, the president of the United States cogitates, and seems decidedly insensitive. Knock, knock, is anybody there? It’s no wonder voters said their votes weren’t a referendum on the president. What president would they referen-dumb? The skinny guy, who seems to come to life mostly while playing golf on Sunday afternoons or when he is courting his wife at chi-chi dinners? Hey, just a thought. Is Barack Obama depressed? He sure has the symptoms.

Maybe you should try Zoloft, Mr. President?

Because one can only wonder what happened to the electric candidate of the 2008 campaign. Mr. Kool seems to have turned into Mr. Cold and Uncaring. It’s as if the president is in some sort of stupor. He seems like an apparition of his old self. Where’s his spirit, his spunk, his force of character? To describe the president of the United States as detached seems an understatement. Clearly, he is missing in action (MIA).

I think Obama needs electric shock therapy to bring the man back from the dead. OK, give this guy a script for Cymbalta.

Or how about a session with Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke at the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous? We miss you, Mel Brooks. We really miss you, Barry O!

But, all kidding aside -- although I’m not kidding -- what’s the deal? Where did The Audacious Mr. Hope disappear? Has he become the boy in the bubble of the White House? Why does he seem so remote? What happened to the iconic dream weaver? Is he nothing but a dreamer? In the Illinois legislator Obama made a name for himself for too often voting ‘present’ rather than taking a hard stand. Is that because he isn’t present?

Have you ever tried Paxil, Mr. President?

Truly, this seems to be the winter of Obama’s disconnect and American’s discontent. Americans are anxious about how they’re going to pay their bills. How they’re going to afford the price of their newly-prescribed medicine. They’re holding their breath not only from worry but from fear of breathing our polluted air. The president has decided not to attend the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen. Instead, he plans to travel to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize for the peace we’re not even close to having and he’s not doing much to get.

Anxiety afflicts Americans. They worry. Is that crazy Ahmadinejad going to nuke us all? Or will it be Kim Jong-il who does us in? What happened to candidate Obama’s promise to get Bin Laden? Never mind the Taliban; by the time the president makes a decision to move more troops into Afghanistan, Bin Laden will have moved out of the region. And what about Iran and Obama? The Arabs and Obama? The Muslims and Obama?

I keep wondering: Why is Barack Obama so willing to talk to them, when he has so little to say to us, the anxiety-ridden Prozac Nation over which the seemingly depressed president presides?

c. 2009 Reprints with permission.

Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. You can read more of her opinions @ http://www.thecjpoliticalreport.com