Not another word

Updated No. Not one. Not one more fucking word about Democrats or even about "more and better" Democrats.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, facing political pressure from high gas prices and a struggling economy, has backed off her emphatic opposition to offshore drilling.

Instead, she's advanced a proposal that would allow drilling 100 miles of both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts - a distance reduced to 50 miles if a state approves.

Even though analysts have pointed out that offshore drilling will not have any effect on energy prices any time in the near future, congressional observers said that with the November election approaching, high gas prices and a sour economy have put political pressure on Democrats to go along with Republicans who have been pushing an expansion of drilling.

Pelosi "doesn't want some of the Democratic members - especially from the more conservative districts, and there are a lot of them - to lose their seats," said former congressman Mickey Edwards, a lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs at Princeton University.

Expanded offshore drilling has been banned for more than 20 years. That ban is to expire on September 30 but instead of moving to renew the ban, Pelosi and company cravenly capitulated to GOPpers and the oil industry out of sheer political cowardice. They don't give a damn about the environment, they don't give a damn about the fishing industry (too many small owners equals not enough big contributions), they don't give a damn about the public or the public interest, all they care about is getting and staying elected, protecting their perks, securing their sinecures, preserving their pensions.

No, I am not going to say that every single Congressional Democrat is a scumbag. But the leadership is composed of scumbags. The leadership is composed of cowards. There may be individual Democrats worthy of support, even of your vote. The leaders of the party - and therefore the party as a whole - are not among them.

Countdown: Fifteen days to the Lotus Surge^TM.

Updated to note that I wrote that very quickly and a main point I wanted to make is probably too well hidden: Nancy Pelosi and company were supposed to be the "more and better Democrats" we were (and are) supposed to focus on electing while ditching other forms of activism.