The Democrats Take Back Congress...So What?

Well, they did it. The Democrats won the back the House of Representatives and the Senate. So after months of mudslinging, slander and propaganda, this year's electoral process has past.

But what does this really mean?

Yes, Nancy Pelosi is going to be the Speaker of the House, and she is going to be the first woman to hold that title. That's a tremendous accomplishment for her, and big step for women all across America. But the more relevant matter concerning her being deemed Speaker of the House is that she is going to be the Congressional liaison between the House and George Bush.

I saw Pelosi on her interview with "60 Minutes," and from what I gathered is that she has no respect for Bush as a politician whatsoever. She specifically said that George Bush was incompetent, and now she is going to be forced into working with this man. Wow! This ought to make for good political compromise.

Not!

But that brings me to the overwhelming result of the election. The American people elected the Democrats into office because they were tired of Republicans ruling without responsibility to their constituents. They were tired of the Republicans' never ending war on terror policy and they were tired of an administration that had assumed the power of a dictatorship. So they brought in the Democrats to correct all wrong and do no evil. But will that be the case?

In the end…yes. By the time the next major shift-changing congressional election comes upon the American public, the Democrats will have accomplished-… something. However, they will not be able to do everything they intend to do, and that is due to the fact that the election that has just passed has created a split Congress.

While having the majority in both Congressional bodies is incredibly important, it is not the beginning of the "Liberal Left Era." It takes 2/3 of the vote to make decisions on so many things in Congress, and the fact of the matter is that Democrats just don't have that power.

Now many of you are probably saying that the Republicans did not have a full 2/3 of the Congressional seats and yet they were able to rule with an iron thumb. However, you must take into account that they had the backing of the administration which added to their majority seat factor.

So what will be the effect of this virtually split house in which the Democrats have a slight edge?

As aforementioned, the Democrats will get something done. Clearly, the troops will be removed from Iraq sooner than had the Republicans still been in control. But they certainly will not be withdrawn as early as the Democrats might wish, so any progress toward getting the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible should be seen as advancement in the eyes of the American majority that voted the Democrats into office. Because anything the Democrats do accomplish is going to be a result of strenuous effort, since many of the things that Democrats will try to initiate will be stalled and stalemated by a Congress that will not accomplish all that much in the next 2 years.

The Democrats will also rid of some of the disgusting acts committed in Congress over the past several months to a year. Afterall, they based a lot of their campaigns on the issue of character, so they better show some of their own and prove they weren't just holding the candle away from themselves.

In addition to that, the Democrats will cut spending, lower the debt, raise taxes (for whom, none one can be sure), and they will restore some of Americas basic principles and reinstate habeas corpus-

Or at least I hope they will.

But the most important thing that Democrats can and will do for the American public is tell George Bush to "Slow his role!" Pelosi called him incompetent. I think he is inefficient. And the American public used their votes to say that they think Bush is injudicious.

So when the Democrats do get Bush to slow his role, hopefully Pelosi will accomplish one of her other major Democratic goals, which is turn a dull Bush into a lame duck.