SFHawkguy's impassioned comment cited in Update V resonates strongly with me.

It is a scathing rebuttal not only to the particular issue which inspired it, but as a righteous broadside to those who continue to buy into the corrupt and co-opted political process operated by a professional political elite comprising not only politicians, but their corporate patrons and the corporate news media with whom they do business.

I've been making noises for a while about how the corporate state, aka fascism, takes hold by permeating society a little at a time; my crap detectors trigger at seemingly innocuous signs of "progress", e.g. traditionally non-business offices such as "superintendent of schools" rebranded "CEO", and even "principals" designated "program managers". It would be like re-naming priests "Salvation Technician", with an unspoken implication that the business paradigm is superior, therefore universal.

And as I followed Barney Frank's defensive remonstrances to dissatisfied constituents in both the LGBT legislation fiasco and Frank's out-of-hand rejection of impeachment, something came through to me: Frank sounded like a harassed and exasperated stockbroker, or corporate project manager, resentfully explaining the facts of life to idiotically dissatisfied stockholders.

Again I was struck by the nagging sense that not only in my lifetime, but roughly in the post-Watergate era, we've seen politicians becoming pure technocrats. Once political power is acquired by the candidate, s/he becomes a conduit or host in a symbiotic circuit of allied and competing interests. Power must be held or increased, and the politician is drawn more and more tightly into a circumscribed elite existence that is nowadays more of a business than an avocation.

Thus, politicians have devolved into businesspersons, with the businesspersons' mentality of reducing all questions to self-serving cost-benefit calculation. Just as corporations come with a "Rhetoric of Excellence", a gilded shroud of mission statements and ostensible commitment to scrupulous pursuit of quality masking the sausage-making works beneath, so too have actual duties of office, including solemn Constitutional responsibilities, been reduced to "quaint" ornaments and window-dressing.

The encroaching business/corporation paradigm has eroded the once common-sense understanding that ultimately, social institutions like schools and courts and legislatures cannot be run like businesses. There are values and methods which are purposely inefficient, and even costly, which cannot be preserved in a business approach. I believe that our politicians have lost touch with their responsibily to lead and work to achieve the promise of the Constitution, and instead operate in accordance with the Flatland rules of engagement on the corporate political chessboard.

Reading between the lines, I hear Frank (like the blog comments from tendentious lesser-evil centrist Democrats) saying to critics: first of all, you're all clueless about how legislation works; you're acting out of an impossibly idealistic illusion of what's possible; what's "possible" is the wiggle room you get from opponents, and if it's not there, it's not there; in any case, I would hope that you would trust my expertise and superior judgement, and have confidence that I'm getting the best deal possible.

I know this thread isn't about Frank, but I'm just retracing how I've come to view our problematic politicians in general.

So I appreciate that comment, which correctly treats all of those bleating technocratic excuses for impotence as so much squid ink. And it's so much less windy than mine!

Another good catch, Glenn. But I couldn't help noticing that the clipping mentioned that the controversial legislation ..."has already passed the Senate overwhelmingly".

Sounds like our Senate was performing its historical mission of having the parties close ranks in order to rescue the poor vested interests in the form of put-upon major financial institutions.

I suppose that even back then, the distinguished solons of the "upper chamber" acted with the same confused good-faith as Larry Craig pleading guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct. That is, it took the Justice Department to point out that the legislation overwhelmingly favored by the Senate of the day was an egregious attempt to justify blatantly illegal conduct in violation of sound antitrust law presumably passed by previous Senates!

I guess it's only dubious memories of the civics classes of my youth that leads me to cling to the fantasy that Senators are themselves learned in the law, and in any case that Senators have staff and counsel to analyze the legal ramifications of proposed legislation. It's so hard to accept that, then as now, Senators dispense legislation like the personification of Justice: blindfolded. That way, they both know not what they do, and can't identify the hands that keep slipping into their pockets and leaving things.

And gee whiz, it would appear that the Senate back then didn't even need a fictitious Global War on Terror as a fig leaf to hide a multitude of misfeasance.

... a Passionate Advocate and User of Ironic Capitalization-- Grammar Nazis be damned!

Too bad there wasn't room to show the parallel Tweety Matthews, saucer-eyed and panting over this testosterone-oozing Noble Savage.

But the important thing is-- is this a guy the Average Joe would want to sit down and have a wooly mammoth skull full of fermented berry mash with?