Reply #8: Yeah, that's pretty much it... [View All]

...and it's one of the liabilities of indirect representation: We elect people based on what we perceive to be their values, knowing full well they're under no contract to represent us. We're gambling on the hope that most of the time, their desires will mesh with ours.

And then you get a Lieberman... or a Feinstein, who told her constituents who, like me, begged her not to vote for the IWR, telling us in no uncertain terms that if she were to vote the way the majority of us wanted, she would vote against it... but essentially that she knew best.

Now we're talking about the very basis of the sort of "representation" we've had in this country since its inception -- and in many ways, it simply does not work. Look at the electoral college for an example of an archaic system still in place for no other reason than that's the way it's always been done. It was set up that way because the Powers That Be thought the people too stupid (or at least too uninformed) to be charged with the responsibility of direct voting.

As one-third of my own misrepresention in Washington is mishandled by a another DINO in the Lieberman mold (Feinstein), I am sorely tempted to say that the congressional model is as outmoded and useless as the electoral college. (I'll stop short of saying that as long as I still have Boxer in the Senate and Eshoo in the House.)

So, why is Moldy Joe betraying his entire party? For the same reason Blair betrays the U.K., and Howard makes a mockery of the democratic process in Australia: Because they think they're going to get richer, or more powerful by doing so.

Power is a cancer.