WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT CHANGE? – AT 11:02 P.M. ET:  Deflation is here, the deflation of the Democratic Party, that is.  From the great ambition of just months ago, the party that controls the presidency, the House and the Senate, is but a shadow of what it was.  From The New York Times:

Senate Democrats on Tuesday abandoned all hopes of passing even a slimmed-down energy bill before they adjourn for the summer recess, saying that they did not have sufficient votes even for legislation tailored narrowly to respond to the Gulf oil spill.

Although the majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, sought to blame Republicans for sinking the energy measure, the reality is that Democrats are also divided over how to proceed on the issue and had long ago given up hope of a comprehensive bill to address climate change.

This is what arrogance gets you.  The people have lost faith in the Democratic Congress, in part because it consistently ignored popular will in the first year of Obama's reign.  Eventually, people get fed up.

Senate Democrats still hoping to pass legislation to aid small businesses with tax breaks and expanded loan programs, as well as to approve aid to states for Medicaid and to help prevent teacher layoffs. But their once ambitious agenda ahead of the summer recess, which begins at the end of this week, has shriveled.

COMMENT:  Either the Democrats misread the 2008 election results, or didn't care.  It's most likely the latter.  The party's congressional wing is led by old liberal stalwarts with safe seats, who pursue their own ideology regardless of what the nation thinks.  And they have not been in a mood to negotiate with, or compromise with, Republicans. 

It doesn't help when the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, a multimillionaire, represents a district in San Francisco that is grossly out of touch with the rest of the country.  San Francisco is to the United States what hip hop is to the Metropolitan Opera. 

The problem for the country is that the seats the Dems will probably lose this November are held by first and second termers, many of them reasonably sane.  The "give me earmarks or give me death" types, often representing districts gerrymandered for them, will be back, ready as always to tax air.

August 3, 2010