Dear America,

My guess is, he never thought it would come to this; he imagined the whole thing going down a wee bit different; he jumped in front of a moving freight train, and thought his cape and crest would save him.

Not so much.

Here we are, a week into the melodrama on Capital Hill, and the political landscape continues to weave and turn.

What a gamble -- I mean compromise; doesn't he know how impossible it is to reap any kind of favorable reward via manipulation, arm twisting, letting the finger do the walkin,' the mouth do the talkin', giving free reign to his rootin' tootin' ego in leading the way?  He thought it was in the bag, so much so, he leaped when he should have taken a step back.  He zigged, when his party zagged. And by the end of the week, he was in such a pickle, he had to call for reinforcements.

The best part, was when he turned to Mr. Bill and said, "I gotta go to a party [as the Mrs. has already been kept waiting for a half hour]..." 

How strange was that -- the president leaving a past-president to clean up the mess he made, to smooth over the rough edges on the track, and to finally make way for the meeting of the minds in Congress to just do it already.

Really?  You called in Mr. 'I did not have sexual relations with that women' Clinton, recalling his fist with thumb protruding from the top, waving at us, as if that would be enough to stop a presidential size train wreck in our midst?  As we all know, it just got worse from there...

...ah yes, but in the liberal mind's eye, he is masterful and wonderful and perfect just the way he is.

I just love, how sometimes, just a girl can get it right; remember back a couple days, when I was wondering why things can't be settled on a handshake, with one thing at a time, only an up or down vote, keeping on the straight and narrow to legislate upon the issue at hand while comforting the community at large with simply a display of one's integrity, political convictions, and personal character? 

I found a little help articulating just that in this morning's "Morning Bell" from The Heritage Foundation...Liberals Leave the Reservation... What does it cry out for, pray tell?  Just a simple vote -- on the bare bones initiative to save the current tax rates for all -- while, if we must, they say, we can do the same in a simple yea or nay for the Unemployment Benefits Extension -- and then call it a day.  That's it. Done.  Then the little engine that could -- I think I can, I think I can -- could probably get over the hump, while more important, keeping the integrity of the engine still very much intact.

Getting back to our Compromiser-In-Chief, he blew it, from day one (that being about a week ago); he came out with both barrels blazing, backing his own party into a corner, and thinking they would just bend rounding the unexpected bend at locomotive speed, naturally and effortlessly, to his new found party line; not so much and not in the least bit.

But there he was, leaving it in the hands of an experienced engineer who has been there before, crafting perhaps his very own saving grace right out of thin air.  Will it be enough? The first round of votes begins about three o'clock, eastern time -- high noon, of course, out here in the wild, wild west.

The thing is, real altruism -- much like a ghost town spiriting a congress long past -- seems only to be found in the annals of history;  as the tumbleweeds come rolling in with the dust up, legislation of the 21st century seems only to come with a pearl of great price; that real price having nearly nothing to do with real money anymore. (ah who are we kidding, real money has a lot to do with it too...)

But these are the people we have elected into office, entrusted to be the caretakers of the public good -- when in fact, few are worth a lick of salt between them.

Somewhere along the line, the attributes we used to elevate in the process of progressing as a society -- our natural ability to persevere, our pioneering spirit to overcome diversity in order to take care of one's own, supporting the generations of both the young and the old in community with one another beginning with our own family -- are elements we no longer value; personally and collectively, society has turned our self-reliance into a thing of the past.

What used to be embedded into our DNA -- endowed by our Creator and reinforced by America's very own heritage over two hundred years -- has grown into waves of entitlement programs, one after the other, bequeathing to the public good a mountain of insurmountable deficits, creating a legacy of debt we can no longer afford, let alone have enough spare change to tinker with these unscrupulous details hidden in the fine print of any new legislation to come our way anymore.

Sure we can move mountains, we can survive the prairie, we can outlive blizzards, droughts, and hurricanes, some of us have been known to even leap tall buildings in a single bound -- but when we do, we expect to keep the money we make (just go with it...).  That's just the way we are made.  In no particular order, the DuPont's, the Vanderbuilt's, the Carnegie's, the Rockefeller's, the Ford's, the Kennedy's, the Gate's, the Buffett's, the Winfrey's, the Johnson & Johnson's, the P Diddy's, the Zuckerberg's... even in make believe, like the 'moving on up' Jefferson's -- this country used to value and applaud and congratulate success; we built this nation wanting the next generation to have more, be more, make more, than the generation who came before.(FYI, just notice when most of the big money's been made...with 375,000 millionaires, some billionaires, America is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing)

Which is all the more poignant when we realize our self-reliant foundation -- the one we take for granted in this age of having everything and nothing simultaneously -- came from a body of men who never once said what's in it for me.

Achieving great personal wealth was not the goal, as building the framework of the best and the brightest natural laws known to man became paramount; laying the track and extending the tools for the public good, so that the public good as a whole -- individually and collectively -- could expand and prosper under free market principles, so that the people could better equip themselves for success, and in the end, provide for themselves; the key, of course, is found in the freedom in-between the small, limited government with limited power ...and the unlimited power unleashed in those who find ways to capitalize on their own skills, talents, education, hard work, tireless efforts, to the best of their ability, to create wealth.

The problem is not in the creation of wealth, but the overzealous control of it, along with the natural growing inclination to grow the government, to take from the rich to give to the poor, like robber barons on a speeding train over the proverbial cliff... a story line played over and over again since the beginning of time.

The good news, and in the spirit of yesteryear, we shall overcome one way or another.  We always have and we always will.

Make it a Good Day --
and you shall be rewarded for it, G

A box of Cracker Jacks gave me a pleasant surprise over the weekend; my prize was a booklet, inside we had to guess who the cryptic illustration was only by the following description:

"I was born in Boston, the youngest son of my father's 17 children.  As a candlemaker, my father earned enough money to send me to school until I was ten.  Despite my limited education, I loved to read and write.  At 12, I became an apprentice to my brother, James, who was a printer.  After several disagreements with James, I ran away to Philadelphia where I would eventually open my own print shop, publish a newspaper, and become involved in politics, foreign affairs, and science...who am I?"


On the back page, Cracker Jacks adds: 

"Described as the most multi-talented figure in American history, Benjamin Franklin's contributions to American society are as numerous as they are important.  The most famous American of his time, Franklin was also an inventor, (bifocals, swimfins are among his many inventions) a philosopher, politician, firefighter, soldier, cartoonist, ambassador and more.  The common thread among all of his endeavors, however, is his dedication to public service and the betterment of society."

then in bold letters, it reminds us: "FRANKLIN CAN ALSO BE FOUND ON THE $100 BILL."

A common thread today, is that our kids seem to be cheated out of a good education -- we aren't doing enough, they say; the argument seems to be we aren't throwing enough money at it, as we enter an age where we just aren't seeing the results we had hoped.  Maybe, we should just stop teaching kids at the age of ten, require them to use their own initiative to read and write on their own, and let them fall where they may fall -- with any luck, they could be the next Ben.

Now, I am being facetious, but think about it.  A limited early education somehow made many a great men...the Franklin's, the Lincoln's, the Carnegie's... hold up, I just might start sounding like a broken record. 

Last word, even a Harvard Education gives us no guarantees.