Hello. Welcome to the middle.

I have been putting my comments on other blogs and boards for some time and finally decided to create my own blog so others could chime in.

The title - "It Is Not a Game!" - is my reply to every politician from every party at every level. These so-called leaders no longer represent us. They no longer care about us. They are all about winning points and scoring victories for the sake if scoring victories. It is no longer about actually governing, and has not been for a long time. At least GOP chairman Steele had the chutzpah to actually call it a game in his blog title on the Republican party web site.

Regardless, they are playing this like a game, the media reports it like a game, the pundocracy hypercharges the rhetoric and we the people - well, we just lose.

Look at the current political landscape. Both major parties - and their media pundit toadies - spend all day every day nitpicking each other over syntax, perceived slights, actual slights, poor word selection, personal issues and on and on. What is missing from this? Well, the issues are missing.

Pick any topic. Any one. Then examine the debate. Are we hearing real issues? Nope. Just highly charged rhetoric from both sides, accusing the other side of being the problem. No longer do these false leaders bother with actual governance. All they care about is winning the next cycle.

They spend all of their time flinging what I have come to call 'flaming spitballs of hate,' at each other with no purpose other than to cause damage.

And before the Democrats take any comfort that I am pointing to the current Republican tactic of obstruction, I remind them that they are just as bad. They were the obstructors until a few years ago. In fact, if you rewind the tape to 2005, Republicans were saying what Democrats are saying today and Democrats are saying what the GOP was saying. It is as if they simply swapped talking points while handing over the majority leadership posts.

Trivia rules the day now. Obama dissed Vegas. Ooh. The Republic may fail. Palin dissed Health Insurance reform. Ooh. The Republic may fail. Cantor says cut taxes to solve everything. Pelosi says spend money except on defense to solve everything. Maddow says "tea-baggers" more often than she says her name. Hannity just shouts "Socialist" every 2 minutes. Olbermann calls everyone within sight a racist. Beck uses Nazi imagery. And Blitzer....well he is still working with that giant iPad screen and his 922 member panels.

Pick any issue. Any one. Try to get facts out. It won't happen. Sure, it may start as a discussion of the issue, but it will end as yet another pointless spitball contest.

And therein lies the problem. Not the giant banks or the labor unions. The problem is that our government is failing us. And quickly. By their engagement in this nonsensical name calling contest, they marginalize their sworn duty to us and perpetuate problems that could be solved.

Just yesterday Senators Dodd and Shelby finally found the excuse they needed to kill any financial services reform. Until yesterday, they remained in their carefully choreographed illusion of disagreement on the issue. Then Paul Volcker suggested some fairly obvious and needed reforms which they seized on like dogs on a meat truck as an excuse to fulfill their lobbyist masters' demands that no rules be changed. Until yesterday, it was flaming spitballs as usual. Dodd wanting regulation, Shelby saying regulation is bad and so on.

Well here is something neither of those 2 will tell you. We have regulations and supposedly a regulator. What we did not have, do not have and will not have until the current Congress is replaced in total is the will to actually regulate.

This applies to every single issue currently being swatted around like a puck in the final game of the Stanley Cup.

Sadly, it is not a game. It is governance. A responsibility, a duty and a service. At least it is supposed to be.