Missing the point

Senator Evan Bayh is leaving Congress. He is the rare politician in that he was honest about why. None of this "spending more time with the family" nonsense. Senators only work 3 or 4 days a week and only 40 or so weeks a year. Time with family is the convenient and untouchable excuse. Most leave because they are running from an ethics problem or will lose for reelection. Bayh had neither of those problems.

No, Senator Bayh had the decency to be honest. He made it very clear - he does not like working in Congress anymore. It has become an unpleasant and dysfunctional workplace. The insane partisanship has made it in ineffective and fairly useless body. And Bayh said so. What makes this all the more significant is that he comes from a family of public servants.

Even though he was clear in his remarks on announcing he would not run, neither side chose to actually listen to him. Within hours, both sides were loading up the flaming spitballs of hate. The GOP celebrated, even though Bayh is a legitimate moderate who has repeatedly chosen the people over the party line. All they could see was another chance to launch broadsides at the Democrats.

Democrats, never missing an opportunity to join in the stupidity, immediately blamed Republicans for their obstructionist tactics. All they could see was another opportunity to blame their inaction on someone else.

Neither side reacted to or dealt with Bayh's blunt and honest indictment of a Congress gone very, very bad. Neither side even mentioned the flat out failure of the Congress to do anything about anything.

So one more good Senator leaves and tries to make a point about the problems and instead of listening, both sides retreat to their safe havens of partisan bickering. So much easier to blab away than actually do anything. After all, doing something might cause someone, somewhere to react poorly, and if nothing else, Congress is all about popularity and looking good while doing nothing.

On the other side of the Capitol, longtime Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart is also leaving. And he said why, too. Same reasons. And the same reactions.

If the Congress were employees of any company anywhere on earth, they would have been fired long ago for failing to do their jobs. Well, come November, we the employers can and should do just that. Fire the lot of them. They have failed and continue to fail.