What a country. Congress declares war while the people watch with mild, half-hearted interest. They pass midnight raises for themselves while the country plunges deeper and deeper into economic crisis and its citizens look on with the hopeful, trusting smiles of those who pray only to remain ignorant while someone else makes sure everything's okay. Then , shocking discovery , it's uncovered that members of Congress are writing bad checks on their personal accounts in a ridiculously poorly managed House bank, and the fury of the American people is unleashed. The S&L scandal couldn't do it. An economic depression couldn't manage it, and ditto for a war. But write a couple of bad checks and the American people will show you what they're made of.

Well bravo, America. Once again you've showed yourself patently incapable of addressing real issues and concerns. This is fluff - it's nothing. It's not justifiable, it's not right - nobody's going to argue that - but we have real concerns, real crises on our hands and it's not the time to allow ourselves to become caught up in a moral, self-righteous battle over a non-issue while our country falls to pieces. Let's not waste our time, energy, and money on this - no committees and investigations to find the gory details behind a bunch of bounced checks. By all means vote these guys out of office, they won't be missed, but let's worry about the real problems.

America's in trouble, real trouble, and it's time to do something about it. Part of the trouble is crooked politicians taking advantage of all the perks they can grab, no question about it, but a bigger part is us. Over and over it seems we search out meaningless concerns over which to get upset while we ignore the big picture. Let's not waste our time on useless outrage. If we want to do something productive about the way our country's run, then let's focus on the real issues. If we don't get the economy moving soon, then what are a couple of bounced checks to that? And if your congressmen overdrawing on their personal accounts upset you, you ought to be real mad about the S&L bail-out money coming out of your pockets. Are you ready to go back to war with Iraq, because your president sure is. There are bigger fish to fry, America, so let's get to it, and not allow ourselves to be sidetracked by trivial matters of no consequence, irritating as they may be. n