There were few more sickening post-election sights than the self-satisfied smirk on Mitch McConnell's face as he addressed the conservative crowd at the Heritage Foundation the other day.
Enough has been said and written about this repulsive man's clueless harangue, so I needn't recap it here.
It's worth noting, however, that both McConnell's revolting triumphalism and President Obama's conciliatory defeatism - which seems to indicate an appalling lack of fighting spirit - are equally misguided and useless.
The attitudes of each man, though diametrically opposed, will lead to the same outcome: The continued abandonment of millions of people in the U.S. who currently live in very, very grave circumstances.
The Philadelphia Inquirer recently published the third article in a series about hunger and poverty in that city.
The stories are shocking enough on their own. Juxtaposed with the lunacy of the recent election, they become even more heartrending and enraging. In case you hadn't noticed, not a word was spoken - from either side - about the appalling poverty and hunger statistics in America.
The articles really must be read in their entirety in order for the story they tell to be fully understood, but here are a few select passages.
Mold grows thick and black on the walls of Celeata Bailey's Norris Square bedroom. Because most of the ceiling is missing, Bailey, 21, gets soaked in bed when it rains.
Her family puts up duct tape to keep the bathroom wall from collapsing. Raw sewage burbles in the basement, and the family stores surgical masks in the kitchen for anyone who has to descend into its putrid depths.
Bailey's poverty is evident throughout the house, which sits in the First Congressional District, the second-hungriest in America, according to a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, one of the largest polls ever taken.
There are areas of Philadelphia that literally must be seen to be believed. I would venture to bet that very few of the people who applauded and sneered along with Mitch McConnell during his speech at the Heritage Foundation are even aware that such places exist. If they are aware, they give the distinct impression that they don't particularly care.
To Mitch McConnell and his fellow conservatives, poverty is un-American. It's a "lifestyle" people choose because they are lazy and prefer not to work. They are a symbol of "decay" in American society.
Here are a few words about a lazy, un-American child - a minority, naturally - choosing to have asthma because his mother prefers not to work. You will readily appreciate the moral decay they are inflicting upon the nation.
Myra Young fits a nebulizer mask over her son Todd's face to beat back his chronic asthma. Inhaling vaporized medicine that keeps him breathing, the 4-year-old with large eyes leafs through a children's Bible to pass the time.
Young, 41, is an unemployed nursing assistant who lost her job in 2007 caring for Todd during his two-month hospitalization. She watches nervously as the whirring machine eats electricity.
The power to Young's two-bedroom rental in Kensington will be cut in two weeks because the bill has climbed to $770...
Her son's nebulizer treatment complete, Myra Young removes the mask from Todd's face.
It's the third week of the month - no more food stamps. Young will be asking her mother for a chicken.
Grateful for the help she's gotten but worried that she'll lose electricity for Todd's nebulizer, Young doesn't want to rely on the safety net a day longer. "I would love to punch a clock," she said. "But I can't find work and it's irritating.
"I'm a mother taking care of her son. And I refuse to collect welfare for the rest of my life. I just will not do it."
When Congress reconvenes, the first item on their agenda will be to continue to squabble over whether to extend tax cuts for people who make over a quarter of a million dollars a year.
As a Canadian citizen asked recently on a U.S. blog, "When did America become so mean?"
Disagreeing about the best solutions to poverty and hunger in America is understandable. Ignoring the problem entirely, as both parties did during the campaign, is shameful. Vilifying those who are in the direst need - as one party did - in order to score political points with that portion of the electorate who couldn't give a damn whether other people live or die is utterly abhorrent.
Guess which party just took over the House of Representatives?
It's difficult to know at this point whether President Obama is practicing some kind of political judo and will land his GOP opponents on the mat at some future date, or whether he is truly as beaten down as he appears.
The media have used words like "numb," shell-shocked," "humbled," and "conciliatory" to describe Mr. Obama's post-election demeanor.
What I saw was a good and decent man who early on in his presidency had decided that the only way to achieve his policy goals was to play by the rules of a corrupt, rotten system - and he had gotten rolled by it. He had the look of someone who has just been abducted by the Mafia and realizes he is being driven to New Jersey to the spot where they dump all the bodies.
To say that this demeanor didn't exactly inspire confidence would be an understatement. But it's still early days. There are many things I wish he had said in response to the election results, most of which were probably extremely impolitic and not in Mr. Obama's nature.
What I can say for certain is this: Neither Mr. Obama's compromising nor Mr. McConnell's contemptible gloating is going to improve the lives of millions of Americans trapped in unforgiving poverty.
There are millions of other Americans who are a skipped house payment, a missed electric bill or a pink slip away from catastrophe. To them, the political games going on in our nation's capital must seem like they are taking place in an alternative universe.
Meanwhile, Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell keep wondering aloud if President Obama really "gets it."
What a question.