At the risk of being "that guy", yes, the CMB's gone downhill (and I he'ped! *shoots self* ) but the decline was well underway before any of us even knew wotmania was closing. It's one of many (MANY) reasons WHY wotmania closed. Once upon a time I was the voice of civility and reason (most of the time). My verbosity was dedicated to expressing myself clearly but thoroughly without offending anyone. Oh, well....

In the interest of non-partisanship I'll refrain from stating why I think issues no longer matter. It doesn't always cut one way either; Dole tried to run on issues, but the issue THEN was the Presidents sex life and whether it should be a matter of public record (though that wasn't CLINTONS idea; to Doles credit I can't recall him ever going there, quite a feat for an incumbent Republican Senator in '96).

If there were ever any doubt issues are dead, it should itself be dead now. I'm REALLY trying to not cast stones here, but we have a party whose entire policy platform is "cut taxes and the deficit". The only thing that proves is their total ignorance of the numbers: If we JUST gave back what people have paid into Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid their whole lives, then paid interest on CURRENT debt, we'd finish $100 billion in the black for 2010. Then shut down the entire rest of the government, and I don't mean "Gramm-Rudman shutdown" I mean EVERYTHING. We'd have to disband the Army because we can't afford MREs (or bullets). If we cut anything, with no change in taxes, we are cutting bone. If we cut taxes, too, we might as well just call China and tell them to come pick up the White House tomorrow. I'm really not interested in blame. We wouldn't agree, but it simply doesn't matter any more. This is no longer a Republican vs. Democrat issue: We still hang together or separately. If that sounds socialist, try to remember that sometimes a collective is just a democracy.

Best part: "Cut taxes and debt" has traction (clearly we're not a nation of accountants). Healthy majorities have told (and still do) pollsters for years they want to kill pork--then the same majorities tell those same pollsters THEIR sacred cow isn't pork. Hence a Governor can demand Congressional earmarks for a Bridge to Nowhere, then run for VP telling the country she told Congress "thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere". There are photos of her holding up a T-shirt promoting the bridge.

It was a bald faced lie, about billions of tax payer dollars, not whom she was boinking. No one cares. Facts are stubborn things, but Americans can out stubborn ANYONE. Much easier to blame corrupt politicians than admit she couldn't get elected without the Bridge in Alaska, and couldn't get elected WITH it anywhere else. Both sides want to believe the BS so they do, and annoying things like legislation, budgets and tax codes only get in the way of that.

You know most or all of this, but I've lost track of how many times I've had to debate it with Tea Partiers in the past months. I actually pissed off a very good friend last night because he kept insisting we could cut taxes and the debt if we just got rid of regulation, but tying together a bunch of buzzwords does not a policy make. I did think of you once or twice, btw; I watch virtually NOTHING on TV and I think the last political show I watched was the '08 election returns, but every time I try to quote actual budget numbers to Tea Partiers I'm told to stop getting my information from the MSM. They even all use the acronym. There's nothing like millions of people telling me in precisely the same tone and words that I've fallen for group think, drink Kool-Aid, whatever, when I'm citing CBO numbers. If THEIR media sources weren't snowing them they'd know where I got those numbers and be just as alarmed as I am. It's freakin' FRUSTRATING, man, and yes, sometimes that shows more than I'd like.

That's what I mean when I say I don't begrudge anyone their vote, but wish they'd bother to get informed before casting it. Hell, I wish 100% of the country would get informed and vote regularly, attend city council meetings and state platform conventions, read something that isn't stuck in front of your nose by someone selling them more debt. This is why we need public education, because a nation that can't think for itself surely can't GOVERN itself.

Thirty hours, that's as restrained and dispassionate as I can be after 30 years of watching people with nigh uncontested control of the country I love destroy it, then blame the loyal opposition.