After a week off to work on a special ultra-double-secret project, I’m back. I’m so tired of the endless Washington ugliness, I decided to go elsewhere (sort of) for a cartoon subject. As a long-time space geek, I’m as troubled as anyone by the seeming lack of direction at NASA, its inability to leapfrog the old technology and come up with the next generation of space flight. Canceling the Constellation project was probably the right thing to do, given the lack of imagination and the bloated costs of the program, but it was still a blow to those of us who are still impossibly smitten with the allure of space exploration. Given the economic realities, we’re in no position to continue throwing billions at manned space travel when unmanned missions are so much less expensive and  produce important science, but the incurable romantic in me argues that man wasn’t built to sit safely at home while robots do the work. We need to go there and see for ourselves.

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It’s clearly time to end the ludicrous “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that allowed gays to serve their country only if they hid their sexual preference. The nation has moved on, but the military, evidently, hasn’t. They want to kick the can down the road with a year-long “study” of the potential effects of ending the policy. The arguments against allowing openly gay soldiers is precisely the argument used against integrating the armed forces and against allowing women in combat units–that other soldiers wouldn’t accept them and the morale of the military, and thus its effectiveness, would be compromised. Well, folks, we have black soldiers and we have women soldiers, and we seem to be doing fine. And a few years after we allow gays to serve openly, the American military will still be strong, and we’ll be wondering what the fuss was all about.  There’s no point in putting this off another day.

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Here we go again. One more attempt at crafting a health care reform bill with the Republicans. The problem is that the GOP wants nothing to do with the main ideas the Democrats have put forth. Part of it is ideological–a reflexive rejection of anything but market-driven health care, (which has dismally failed either to provide for everyone or to control costs) and part is a reflexive desire to defeat Obama at all costs. The Republican idea of bipartisanship seems to be do it my way or not at all. We no longer have a legislative body in Washington capable of the compromises necessary to pass major legislation. This is a high-risk move on Obama’s part; if he fails to get anything, and the public blames him rather than the GOP (which has successfully outmaneuvered and out-communicated him so far), he can kiss his entire agenda goodbye, as well as the Congressional majority in November. If, on the other hand, he is able to show the Republicans for the obstructionists they are, or is able to persuade the members of his own party to develop backbones and pass something, he might yet have the last laugh.

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The Olympics are always a source of good metaphors, at least while they’re being broadcast, and people are familiar for two weeks with sports they never see anywhere else. I thought the poorly-designed luge track, scene of a fatal accident and a number of other training mishaps, was a fine choice for talking about Iran’s reckless rush to build the bomb.

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Hypocrisy is nothing new in politics, and neither side has a monopoly. That said, former vice president Dick Cheney is taking it to a whole new level with his constant attacks on the Obama administration’s conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the handling of terror cases. Wasn’t it just a few years ago that any criticism of the Bush/Cheney administration was undermining the morale of the troops, giving aid and comfort to then enemy and emboldening the terrorists. The word “treason” was even whispered in certain conservative circles. I won’t even go into the long-standing tradition of previous administrations not criticizing the current one, especially in wartime. That rule no longer applies, either. I’m left to conclude that the Republicans will do and say anything to undermine any Democratic administration, no matter what the cost to the nation.

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Here we go again. Obama is reaching out to Republicans one more time, convening a health care summit in hopes of crafting a bipartisan bill with a party that wants nothing to do with bipartisanship. If anything, Republicans, emboldened by Scott Brown’s surprise victory in Massachusetts, see obstructionism as the way to success at the polls. They’re going along, of course, because they have to at least pretend to want to work across the aisle. Their modest proposals for health care reform, which, if enacted, might extend coverage to about 5 percent of the nation’s uninsured, and which do nothing to contain costs, are so at odds with the president’s more sweeping proposals there is little chance that this summit will be anything but political theater.

Obama still seems reluctant to call the GOP out. The party that loudly demanded up and down votes on the Senate floor for Bush’s nominees now holds all of Obama’s hostage for months on the flimsiest of grounds–the latest being Richard Shelby’s hold on 70 nominees if he didn’t get an earmark for his state. It now takes 60 votes to accomplish anything in the Senate, thanks to the GOP’s filibuster of everything and anything. In the bizarre math of the current political paralysis, 41 votes defeats 59. And the inability of Democrats to accomplish anything in this environment appears to imperil their majority in November. President Obama, Mr. Cool, still refuses to raise his voice. The only people who seem to be genuinely angry, for all the wrong reasons, are the Tea Party loonies. Meanwhile, the country suffers.

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Toyota’s reputation for quality has been severely damaged by the latest problems with their cars. After decades of gridlock and the resulting inability to accomplish anything, the reputation of Congress can hardly be damaged further.  At this point, it looks as though the Democrats, who failed utterly to use the power handed to them a year ago, face a humiliating defeat at the polls next November, probably on a scale to match the humiliating defeat the Republicans deservedly were handed last year. Meanwhile, the country’s problems mount, with no end to this absurd merry-go-round in sight.

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Medical marijuana shops are cropping up all over the place. We all know, of course, that this is a total sham; it’s a way to legalize marijuana while pretending that we’re doing it for purely ethical reasons. We won’t admit that the prohibition of ganja was as effective as the prohibition of alcohol, so we save face this way. But why stop there? There are equally good uses for dope, and times like these call for a little creativity. Here’s one way to expand the use of marijuana, also for humanitarian purposes.

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I thought President Obama got it exactly right in his State of the Union address last night, chiding both Democrats and Republicans for their inability to solve any of the daunting problems facing the country. The Democrats are tied in knots, unwilling to wield the power the voters gave them a year ago, and the Republicans are living up to their reputation as the party of “no,” opposing anything before them now that they are in the minority. It remains to be seen if this is the emergence of a new, more aggressive Obama, who sat on the sidelines and failed to speak for his agenda for far too long while Congress dithered and the public burned.

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In a word, the state of the union is ANGRY! The question for the president and for both parties to figure out is, at what? Because we have a two-party system, the only choice people have if they don’t like what’s happening is to vote for the other guy, even if the other guy is largely responsible for what’s happening, and the guy that’s in there now is in there because of the other guy’s mistakes. People are angry at deficits, largely run up by the irresponsibility of the Bush administration, and topped off by Obama. They’re angry that the bankers who got us in this mess are making millions while we lose our shirts, thanks mainly to deregulation promoted primarily by Republicans (but signed off on by Clinton). They’re angry about jobs, but there’d be a  lot more of them if the stimulus package had been larger, which would have increased the deficit, which they’re angry about. They’re angry that Washington seems wholly beholden to special interests, so they’re going to vote for the party that loves special interests at least as much as the party in power now. They’re angry at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were started by the party they just voted out a year ago. They’re angry that Obama has accomplished so little of his agenda, so they’re going to vote for the party that has unanimously opposed every single aspect of it.

I’m angry, too, and I get to draw cartoons about what I’m angry about, which doesn’t solve any of the problems, but makes me feel good. I’m a Tea Party of one.

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