Reality Sets In

America is generally jaded toward politics and politicians. For the most part, they have good reason to be so. Political ads and the rhetoric of those who hold (or desire to hold) office often leave America with half-truths or distortions of fact. Those who pay the least attention to politics, and are therefore the most likely to become cynical, are the ones who have neither the time nor the inclination to understand and verify the claims of candidates.

Now that we are almost two months into the 110^th Congress, reality is starting to set in, and many of the promises/claims/intonations of politicians are being put to the test. Below is a brief rundown of some of the campaign pledges, and how they are fairing in the real world of Congress.

The House leadership's pledge of a five-day work week for Congress

• Nancy Pelosi and her House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, said there would be "votes on Monday and Friday", meaning those in Congress would have to be there, doing meaninful business five days a week. So far, Congress has had only one such week, with sessions being cancelled for important events like college football games.
  
  More to the point, reality has set in for Pelosi et. al. in that Congress does not always have things on which to vote for five days a week. Legislation moves very slowly through committee, wherein much of it dies. Further, those Congressmen and women focused on truly representative to their constituents (though they are very rare) spend a good deal of their time in their home districts, meeting with those they represent. Further, the more our politicians remain in the same place the more "groupthink" develops, which leads every few years to a strong "ousider" movement, where those with little political experience often have a stronger message than those with plenty (see the messages of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama).
  
  Now that these realities are pressing in on the Democratic leadership, it is becoming more and more clear that their criticism of the work week schedule instituted by the GOP was far less tainted by government largess, corruption, and apathy than the then-minority Democrats wanted America to believe.

The already-famous pledge from Speaker Pelosi that this would be the "most ethical Congress in history"

The single biggest complaint the voting public had about the GOP in November (next to the Iraq War) was corruption. The Democrats saw this advantage fully utilized it. Now that reality has set in, what do we see happening? The same people who pledged to "cut the tie" between politicians and lobbyists making the chairmen of their committees available to the highest bidders.

Missouri's very own Claire McCaskill, who made it part of her stump speech to blast the Republican connection to lobbyists, was unable to hold the line. Within weeks of being sworn in she held a fundraiser with lobbyists from big agriculture, big pharmacudical, big retail, and others.

Additionally, the Left (rightly) drew as much attention as they could to any and all Republican scandals. Their own scandaler, however, William Jefferson of Louisiana (who, if you remember, had $90,000 of money obtained through bribery hidden in his freezer) now finds himself on the Homeland Security Committee, with access to untold amounts of top-level national security information.

The Democratic complaint, repeated over and agan for the past decade, that the GOP refused to allow them open debate in the House

This requires little explaination: the first 100 hours of House activity included no committee hearings, limited floor debate, and party-line votes. Further, from the start of this Congressional session until today, Pelosi has allowed only one Republican alternative to a bill to be voiced on the floor.

My point in all of this is not simply to bash the Democrats in a burst of unbridled partisanship. Through all of this I do not pretend to excuse any of the Republican scandals, corruptions, or excesses of the past 12 years.

Instead, I hope to point out that when one party is in power, and the other campaigning, it is quiet easy for the minority to scream from a position of righteousness. It is easy to ignore any and all reality of governing: that politics plays a huge role; that money is a necessary evil; that what would be ideal is not always (or maybe ever) possible.

It is a certainty that the GOP will attack the Democrats with all these things I have listed above. They too will ignore the reality of governing in a broken world.