Living History

In case you hadn’t heard, the budget deal that the Big Enders struck with the Little Enders on Friday is historic, historic. I’m not sure why, exactly. It looks like a typical grubby political compromise to me. Why not just leave it at that? Why the spurious attempt to endow it with some kind of importance that everybody knows it lacks? Pot roast isn’t filet mignon. Stop making asses of us all by insisting that it is.

I’d venture to say that the American people have had their fill of history. In the last decade we’ve seen an historic terrorist attack, two historic wars, the historic accretion of executive power, the historic elimination of historic constitutional rights, the historic Great Recession, and the historic election of a black president who, it deeply saddens me to say, is in danger of becoming an historic mediocrity, a honey-tongued Herbert Hoover.

All this in a county that is notoriously indifferent to history.

Truthfully I’m almost beyond caring about it. One group of slimy politicians called Republicans quibbled with another group of slimy politicians called Democrats over which of my limbs are expendable. American bombs are still falling abroad, Goldman Sachs is still making historic profits, and We the People are reduced to being helpless spectators to our own evisceration. That’s all we’re going to be with these kinds of ‘historic’ leaders.

By the way, here’s a lesser known part of the historic deal:

Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, said the budget bill included his proposal to remove gray wolves in Montana and Idaho from the federal list of endangered species. This would enable the two states to manage their wolf populations and to allow hunting of the animals if they choose.

“This wolf fix isn’t about one party’s agenda,” Mr. Tester said. “It’s about what’s right for Montana and the West.”

I guess that’s the best that two hundred years of American democracy can achieve: screw the poor and kill the animals!