Gridlock is good

By K.E. Campbell

To butcher Gordon Gekko's famous quotation, "Gridlock is good. Gridlock is right. Gridlock works. Gridlock -- mark my words -- will save the USA." This is so, at least compared to the alternative of more "progressivism" and its offshoots, out-of-control spending and an assault on liberty.

In a Reuters article published yesterday titled "Obama: US can't afford two years of gridlock," President Obama is quoted having said:

"We can't spend the next two years mired in gridlock. Other countries like China aren't standing still so we can't stand still either. We've got to move forward."

Obama, like fellow-traveler Harry Reid, is in denial. As Wall Street and most everyone but the 22% of voters who describe themselves as liberals understands: gridlock works. It's the Obama agenda we can't afford.

The vast majority of the electorate doesn't want politicians to get along. We want the multi-thousand-page money-wasting wheels of the federal government to grind to a halt. We, the people, want checks and balances. We cherish balance of power. We want lawmakers to keep a skeptical eye on one another. (Lord knows the media isn't doing that job.)

We don't want compromise. We don't want bipartisanship. We want a fight: for our rights and liberties and protection from big government. Washington isn't a cocktail party. That's not why we send politicians there. We send them to protect and preserve the U.S. Constitution. The last thing we want is cozy backroom deals and backslapping and an "us against them" (i.e., the ruling class v. the people) mentality.

Taking Obama's comments literally, repealing the leviathans known as ObamaCare and the Financial "Reform" Act would mean we weren't "mired in gridlock", right? But that's not what he has in mind, of course. So, maybe, Obama too will end up seeing the benefits of gridlock.