Keeping Above Water

So its been a while. The last couple of weeks have kept me extraordinarily busy. I had seven stories last week, this week, ten, yes, ten. Its really great to be keeping busy though, and I've been able to get into a nice flow and into a bit of a routine, which I find helps things go by much faster. Its hard for me to believe, with the tangible evidence before me in the form of stories and miles, how busy I've been since I've been here, and how quickly the time has flown by. Next week will mark my second full month here, and its really shocking me to see everything rush by.

I must say that I'm very happy that the filibuster compromise came down. While we have to swallow a few bad judges, the protection of the filibuster in the Senate remains, which is good. The real interesting question is what this does to Bill Frist's presidential ambitions. He only has a limited time left as majority leader (he's retiring in 2006), and so far, with one of the largest Senate majorities in recent memory, he's been able to get almost nothing of significance through, with the possible exception of drilling in ANWR. That's it, that's all this Senate has produced so far out of Bush's agenda, there's not Patriot Act II, Missile defense system, and obviously, no overhaul of Social Security. So far, the political capital the president said he had after the election has been spent incredibly poorly. Frist's chances hinge on being able to deliver to the James Dobson wing of the party now, so that they won't fall head over heels for Sam Brownback and George Allen, the real true believers, in the primaries. McCain has a constituency, but by committing what Lawrence O'Donnell called on Huffington Post the greatest act of political courage this century, he's shown he is still a major player who can work with both sides.

I have noticed though, that around cable news and on blogs, conservatives seem to be seeing the country as being in crisis, like we're losing our grip on something, whether its the culture wars or something else. But for some reason, with control of every branch of government, there's still this totally illogical belief that they are somehow oppressed by the establishment, when they, in fact, are the establishment.

By the way, it should be noted that this state's neighbor to the south has not yet been sucked into the tenth circle of hell, nor have mothers and father's taken to the streets and begun cannibalizing their own children and each other since their state court legalized gay marriage last year. Maybe that should be a lesson to the rest of the country to start looking at this issue in terms of the here and now, and not in some calamitous future where we marry fruit bats.