Strategy aside, their tactics suck.

[Mythsaje]

I guess we're used to having our political figures make campaign promises and toss them by the wayside the minute they actually win. Nothing new about that. Maybe some of us are suffering from buyer's remorse, looking at the bill and wondering if we're going to get anything we paid for.

I'm not particularly good at chess. For one, it's entirely too limited a playing field. For another, it's a game of strategy, not tactics. I'm good at short-term thinking and use of resources. Back in my gaming days I drove people crazy with my ability to pull the unexpected out of my ass. Quick thinking in changing circumstances. I think I got a little of it from my father, who learned how to improvise back in the days of Marine Recon in 'Nam.

I don't know. But one thing I know is that if you get too caught up in strategy, you can lose sight of changing circumstances and the necessity to alter plans to take advantage of a new situation. So if this administration IS "playing chess," I think it's time they switched to a new game. One with wider perimeters and more flexibility. And I don't have the faintest idea what Congress is playing at, but it's not winning a lot of them very many friends on the left.

I've complained that they seem to have no idea how to negotiate. I've bitched that they enter into bargaining with their mind already on the compromise. I've said that I think we're running out of possibilities to explain what's going on. Complicity, incompetence, or simple lack of nerve. One of these three things have to explain their inability to push a more favorable agenda past their own quisling compatriots and through the disheveled Republican ranks. In short, they either don't know what they're doing, or they don't want to succeed.

If there's actually a strategy at work in all this, I don't see it. Snubbing the gay community, pouring money down the rathole that's our banking industry, offering up medical "reform" as a giveaway to the insurance companies. There might be a long term strategy there to make everything better. But, as I said, I'm not a strategy person. But tactically, I have to say it's a virtual explosion of suckage.

The gay rights crowd is going to get fed up with being thrown under the bus, giving away money without meaningful regulation to go with it is a bit like being robbed, and any health care "reform" bill that doesn't seriously reign in the power and influence of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries is a blatant act of self-sabotage.

Even considering how unhelpful the corporate media can be, it's still not impossible to get out a message asking for the support of the American people in making a better world for themselves and their children. And, as we've seen, the Republican plan doesn't lead to a better world. Why not give us a chance to see what we can do?

I'm not sure there's ever been a better time for it.

[rucky]

1. Rec'd!

Agree 100%