Wu, Kucinich and the Bomb

C-Span is a wonderful thing. I have always refused to subscribe to (read pay for) cable television, but when the roofers told me I had to remove my roof antenna, I was forced to look around for an unused cable and hook up. Now I see why so many people are addicted to C-Span. It is a news and politics junky's ultimate stash. What truly amazed me about it is that it actually allows, (or to be kinder? fairer?), one might say even promotes diversity of opinion. Since one of my themes of late is that we presently have only one political party in this country, the Repubricrats, C-Span's programming forced me to take a closer look at that notion. C-Span's coverage of debates on the floor of the House of Representatives and the Senate would seem to put the lie to the notion of a single, tweedle-dee-tweedle dum party. There is definitely finger waving, dais thumping and exhortation going on a lot of the time. And, it is obvious that if there were literally one party, there would be no need to take votes on resolutions. Voting takes place a lot on C-Span. Of course, 99.9% of all voting is along party lines, and since there is a comfortable Republican majority, and there are only two parties, this creates an interesting opportunity for the opposition party: it can rant and rave all it wants, showboat, grandstand, flip-flop and do handstands in full confidence that all these pyrotechnics will have no impact whatsoever. Sometimes, of course, an aura of sincerity emerges, a call to delve into one's sense of what is right, moral, just, fair, or just sensible. The discomfort that such expressions cause is fortunately short-lived, since they occur only rarely, and usually at one o'clock in the morning (at least here on the East coast) when anyone who might make a difference has probably gone to bed three hours earlier. One such outburst took place this morning. The words expressed were rather startling words, particularly given the fact that they would be among the last words recorded in the House of Representatives until early November, as the Congress recesses to take part in elections. In a colloquy between himself and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Oregon Representative David Wu stated that if a mushroom cloud ever rose over the American heartland, he would like to be on the record as having pointed out that the responsibility for such an outcome could be laid at the steps of our own Capitol as it threw all reason and caution to the winds and fed the appetite of India and Pakistan for fissile material. Pretty heady stuff. The temptation is to say, "Yeah, but he and Kucinich were the only two guys on the floor of the House, it was one A.M., and no one was watching." But, you know, someone was watching. Maybe there is some hope. We still have C-Span, and we still have a few honest citizens.