WATERMARK

So here I am, glued — at the same time — to cable news and the internet. Thinking.

So this will be a thinking post, possibly updated as the evening progresses. You know this isn’t a news site — go elsewhere to keep up.

The pundits are all listing the following four issues: Iraq. Terrorism. The Economy. Corruption.

There seems to be some surprise that corruption is such an issue for voters; everyone (those who are supposed to know) expected it to be Iraq Iraq Iraq . . .

But why are these seen as separate issues? Doesn’t corruption run through all the others?

Surely voters have noticed that the administration has been dishonest (corrupt) about the war; that huge military contracts have been granted with questionable (corrupt) oversight; that the poor — who are getting poorer — were left on rooftops at least partly due to nepotism (corruption) and incompetence; and that a number of very public people have turned out to not embody the values they espouse. That they are, in other words, corrupt:

1. guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked…

2. debased in character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil…

Are you surprised?

Oh, yes — then there’s torture — speaking of corrupt. Do Americans really feel comfortable about endorsing torture? Do Americans really believe that their president ought to be able to ‘interpret’ the Geneva Convention? Is our loyalty to party and president, or to country and consitution?

I guess we’ll find out.

From The Huffington Post:

The Associated Press has just posted a piece on its exit polls, and just like CNN’s exit polls found, AP is finding that corruption is a key issue driving voters today. AP’s exit numbers are also finding a surprisingly high number of evangelicals going Dem, a trend that many political analysts noted early in the cycle.

One-third — that’s 33% — of the evangelical vote is said to have gone Democratic. If this is true, it really is a sea change. Perhaps it indicates hope for a return to values we really do share: fairness, equality,  justice, democracy — our Constitution; our Bill of Rights. Our shared freedom of religion. 

Thoughtfulness. 

As I go, exhausted, to my bed, it seems we are about to have the first woman Speaker in history. How could I not be pleased with that? And it seems Tester will take the race here in Montana, though that has not been called.

I go to bed hoping that our new Congress, whatever its makeup, will realize that this wave was not pro-Democrat; nor, do I think, it was anti-war — Lieberman, after all, survived handily.

I think it was pro-governing. I think we want those who represent us to actually govern: competently, ethically, thoughtfully. Cooperatively.

To govern in this, real, world — not in some idealogical, science-denying, made-up reality. Not for self-interest, but in service.

Good night. And may the next few years be better.