If not the Senate and House, then who?

By Carol Gee

What we know is that the Bush administration has failed during its two terms of office. News of porous borders and corrupted Homeland Security personnel does not need to make the front page of The New York Times for us to understand the executive branch's failure. A trip to fill up your vehicle points out legislative failure at oversight and regulation of the oil industry. If not the executive and the legislative branches, what about the judicial branch of our government?

Several Supreme Court decisions in recent years have raised a great deal of controversy, the most damaging one was the decision that gave the 2000 presidential election to the new "corporatocracy" that married government to corporations for the benefit of the very few. At the very least the clearly divided court's decisions garnered little public support for the ultimate judicial outcomes.

What are these failures about? At a minimum such failure results in low public approval ratings, so low that McCain has to figure out how to distance himself from the failed Bush administration. According to the 5/27/08 story from Reuters, "The Reuters/Zogby poll last week found Bush's approval rating had fallen 4 percentage points to 23 percent, a record low for pollster John Zogby. Congress fared even worse, however, falling 5 points to 11 percent."

What is the big deal? At what did so many fail? The failure was to properly uphold and protect the Constitution. What happens when a Constitution lacks the weight of authority? Then who is left?

That leaves just us, the people. We are left to make the best of the bad deal we have gotten, as L.A. Times columnist Meghan Daum writes that "Recession has its benefits." No kidding, that is the headline. And veterans in East Texas better not have PTSD, because that diagnosis does not have much standing at a local Vets' office.

Without the rule of law that allows no citizen to be above the law, we have anarchy. Historically, empires have fallen and nations have failed under similar circumstances.

Are you now convinced that it is time to get involved in the upcoming U.S. elections -- all of them?

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)