I am not a partisan. I believe in what James Madison wrote in Federalist #51

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

This was the philosophical framework for the design of our constitution and the rationale for separation of powers with checks and balances. The founders did not anticipate that with a sufficiently strong political party controlling the legislature and the executive, the checks and balances fail. We get bad government. We get government that abuses power. We get corrupt government. And only a partisan can believe that single party democratic government will be any less corrupt, or any less abusive of their power and damaging to the country than single party Republican government was. Check the corruption record of the Democratic congress in the first two years of the Clinton administration. Or just wait. You’ll soon see it again.

And BTW – Read David Mahew’s book “Divided We Govern.” It absolutely debunks the notion that there is any correlation in “something getting done” legislatively and unified single party vs. dividied government.

“…you seem like a bitter whiner.”- middle

Ah. I see the confusion. Simple misunderstanding. You see, it’s in my job description.

Actually, my problem is less with Obama (who I have written complimentary about, and who I respect as an intellect, speaker, and Bear fan) and more with Obama supporters and their uncritical, unquestioning support of some fairly conventional liberal policies.

I would not even have that much of a problem with the Obama supporters if it were not for what I consider to be a the extremely dangerous government state we are likely to inherit when he wins. We will have a charismatic leader with a large mandate walking into a Cheney designed and expanded unitary executive role, with no meaningful opposition from widely expanded Democratic majorities in either the Senate or House. This will be the greatest concentration of unfettered power in the White House in my lifetime (55 years) and arguably ever in the history of the US. I don’t care if it was Jesus Christ on the ballot, I would work vigorously against that government state.