Opinion: Political Playground
February 23, 2012
Bruce Walton
Bruce Walton is a freshman news major and columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].
Last week, one of my readers told me that I have a habit of “exclusively having opinions about all the unsavory things Republicans do without ever mentioning that the Democrats are the other side of the same asshatery coin.”
The comment was referring to my last article that focused on Sen. Jim DeMint’s analogy about how Republicans and Democrats are like football teams and don’t share the same goals.
I disagree that I exclusively focus on Republicans; I focus on the individual responsible for the comment. I may have said a few opinions about the GOP as a whole last week, but that goes without saying when Sen. DeMint was the opening speaker for a Republican convention in which he spoke on behalf of the party while being cheered on with thunderous applause.
I may have these opinions about Republicans but also Democrats just the same. My reader also shared with me an incident with a Democrat I too had heard about which I wish had happened before I wrote my previous column.
Last Thursday, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) called House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) “demons” in a speech she gave.
According to the Huffington Post, she also went on to say “…These are legislators who are destroying this country rather than bringing us together, creating jobs, making sure we have a good tax policy, bringing our jobs from back offshore, incentivizing those who keep their jobs here. They are bringing down this country, destroying this country, because they can.”
I am disgusted with Rep. Waters for her rude outbursts, especially since she has a history of verbally insulting her other GOP Congressmen. This is exactly what I am talking about when I say that we need to have a more bi-partisan Congress that doesn’t throw insults across the room at each other.
I don’t leave Democrats out of this, and I won’t say they’re any less at fault. Although Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor say some terrible things themselves, it isn’t right for anyone to say anything bad to anybody else.
It’s very sad that I have to speak about our politicians as if they were children, but the fact of the matter is: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all. It’s a lesson that most of us learned in elementary school, but Democratic and Republican politicians alike fail to see the importance of cooperation and compromise.
This is why there is so much gridlock in legislation, this is why Congress has a 13 percent approval rating right now; it’s because many congressmen are acting like children and playing chicken with other congressmen.
I don’t criticize the Republican or Democratic parties for these uncivilized outbursts, but rather the individual congressmen shouting out names and accusations that do nothing but slow cooperation with others. So the next time I call someone out on being unruly and a disappointment to American politics, you will know I am talking to the individual that did it, regardless of their party affiliation.