A tantrum of epic proportions

There are many, many things to say about Friday’s non-binding resolution against the troop surge that the U.S. House passed largely along partisan lines. You don’t even need a thesaurus. I can give you any number of words: gutless, amoral, cowardly, cynical, grandstanding, puffery, perfidious, weasel-like, moronic, short-sighted, odious, slack-jawed. There are a veritable cornucopia of pejorative terms I could use. But you still need to use the proper term for what the vote itself represents – a tantrum.

Parents, of course, recognize tantrums. As my kids get older, Jill and I see a lot fewer of them than we used to; increasing maturity means that children are usually able to get a better handle on their emotions. Some children never are quite able to handle these emotional outbursts. Typically, we call them “problem children.” Of course, sometimes the problem children find a way to get elected to Congress. Those people we call “liberals.”

The liberals are in the saddle now and they are quite pleased with what they’ve done. They have expressed their rage at the current babysitter figure in their midst, George W. “Decider” Bush. I don’t wanna fight the bad guys. I don’t. I don’t. Make them go away. You can’t make me do this. No, I won’t eat my spinach.

I can remember, during some of my son’s better tantrums, when he informed me in a tearful, righteous rage that asking him to share something with his sister was “against the law.” We’ve heard that sort of thing out of Betty McCollum and Henry Waxman, to name just a few examples. I also remember a few of my daughter’s rants, where she informed me that I was the naughty one and that I should go to my room for asking her to stop screaming at the dinner table. I believe that’s what John Conyers has suggested as an appropriate remedy for the Decider.

One thing about tantrums is that, generally, they eventually subside if you ignore them. Bush has been trying to do that for the better part of the last four years, but our solons and their media enablers are nothing if not persistent. Now they sense that, because they have managed to win assent temporarily, just as a wearied parent will sometimes give in to a tantrum, that they can start controlling things. A wise parent doesn’t allow this to happen. We’re about to find out if the real parents in this scenario, the American people, can recognize what is happening.