The Emperor Nero didn't fiddle while Rome burned on the night of 18th July AD 64 - partly because fiddles hadn't been invented yet, but mainly because he was 32 miles away in Actium when the fire started, had himself driven back at speed and then ordered his palace and its gardens opened for the refugees and organised that they be given food and water.
But the GOP, having spent the past 8 years stacking up the dry wood, pouring on the gasoline and then hurling on a lighted brand last September, seem now to be forming a ring fence around the conflagration, keeping out the firefighters on the pretext that the third button down on the uniform isn't quite polished to perfection.
Surely it's time for concerted action to ensure that the best and brightest minds in the country are dealing with this?
So.... Obama's been in office for over 50 days, the US - and the world - is in the middle of the worst financial crisis since before WWII and possibly the worst global financial crisis ever.
We were never before on the brink of peak oil and climate change. In fact, the last depression was at the beginning of the Oil Age and the fact that we had increasing access to the equivalent of 22 billion slaves working round the clock to provide us with energy is largely what dragged us out of it and into the consumerist utopia we now inhabit (please activate irony sensors).
That said, Obama has succeeded in getting Geithner appointed as Treasury Secretary, but not another post has been filled. Yesterday, as widely reported Rodgen Cohen followed Annette Nazarath in withdrawing himself from consideration for the No.2 job at the Treasury - and as Thomas Friedmanpointed out on Wednesday in the NYT
Our country has congestive heart failure. Our heart, our banking system that pumps blood to our industrial muscles, is clogged and functioning far below capacity. Nothing else remotely compares in importance to the urgent need to heal our banks.
Yet I read that we’re actually holding up dozens of key appointments at the Treasury Department because we are worried whether someone paid Social Security taxes on a nanny hired 20 years ago at $5 an hour. That’s insane. It’s as if our financial house is burning down but we won’t let the Fire Department open the hydrant until it assures us that there isn’t too much chlorine in the water. Hello?
Hello? Indeed.
I'd say it's not so much about assuring us there's not too much chlorine, it's more about not caring a four-x if the house burns down. In fact they want it to, because then they can say it was his fault.
While any sane individucal wants the brightest and best onto this so fast it'll make their little butts burn.... It really doesn't matter if they slept with the nanny's pet goldfish while watching gay porn. Really. Truly. Just now, if they can fix the problem, why are they being subjected to the kind of scrutiny that would have floored Cheney or Rumsfeld in the first half hour? No other civilized country does this. Promise.
so might I suggest some concerted Netroots Action - pounding the Critters-on-the-Hill of any and every persuasion - and the print and cable media with a confetti of outrage until they take notice at the calumny that's being perpetrated in the quiet committee rooms.
This is the kind of time to re-activate the 'get Obama elected' community networks. Truly.