Keller @ Large: Leaders We Chose Reflect Our Own Weaknesses
BOSTON (CBS) - Tell the truth now – did you follow the news about fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington closely over the weekend?
If you turned away in disgust before now, you have plenty of company, I'm sure.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
Podcast
But keep in mind, we're talking about the failures of our representatives, the people we chose from among us to lead. Maybe it's worth considering how much they reflect our own weaknesses.
Remember how this whole fiasco began?
The fiscal conservatives in the House who had blocked the annual lifting of the debt ceiling agreed to back down in exchange for a promise – that serious spending cuts would be pursued by a special bi-partisan commission.
With trademark baby-boomer humility, it was called the supercommittee.
But the supercommittee, while more powerful than a locomotive, couldn't leap tall buildings in a single bound, and its failure came faster than a speeding bullet.
The Democrats claimed the Republicans were prisoners to rigid antitax ideology. The Republicans said the Democrats were slaves to tax-and-spend statism.
Sound familiar?
More than a year later, they're still having the same argument over and over and over again, like sports radio callers.
Maybe they will come up with some type of band-aid deal today to ward off the worst short-term chaos of the cliff. If they do, guaranteed they'll think the fireworks on TV tonight are celebrating them.
More likely, they'll all retreat into their comfort zones of self-serving spin, Democrats casting themselves as defenders of grandma and enemies of Mr. Burns from the Simpsons, Republicans posing as champions of free-enterprise and the last red line between us and socialism.
Then again, those are the cartoonish positions that got them all re-elected.
As easy as it is to mock Washington, aren't they just reflecting our own confusion, polarization, and conflicting demands right back at us?
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
