Exploding hot dogs

The other night as my day was winding down and the Phillies were getting ready to play a ball game, an ominous report of a suspicious package found at the ball park started to appear on the news. The package was detonated and turned out to be hot dogs, left over from a publicity stunt that the Phillies Phanatic was doing. In this day and age, leaving a package outside a ball park costs taxpayers. I wonder if anyone is reimbursing the taxpayers for that or at least issuing a policy that could hold people accountable if they leave packages behind. I know, I'm cheap.

And as I watched President Bush give a very short and cursory speech on the financial chaos that is now US, I thought back to the image of the exploding hot dogs.

It is right that we protect our safety, but where were the precautions for our economic market? Where were the equivalent watchdogs, the "detonators", those whose job it is to protect the public from harm?

Is it Congress? Should it be? Will more regulations fix this - or are we looking at a situation where people knew, those who are our leaders knew - and their hands were tied? I think that's more the case and here's why I believe that.

Because even now when the problem is in full view, no one seems able to handle it.

The President spent part of his paltry, very brief speech (considering the $700 billion price tag) inviting Obama down to Washington, as if it was a time to do THAT. Obama and McCain are both Senators, both running for presidential office, which is , as we know, a full time job, so all this highlights is that neither is in Washington, doing their job as a Senator. Can we have a dialogue on all of that some day? Instead we talk about being invited to Washington.

Maybe I'm just cranky because I see all this money going toward a bailout that might have been avoided. But I, for one, am questioning if we should be looking at other issues, like whether Congress dropped the ball, why, if people knew this could happen, we weren't told and even then received a brief and paltry speech from our current president as if we were kids in an assembly hall that had a ten minute limit - and why no one stepped up to the package and protected the public.

Instead they're playing politics. With our money.

It's already exploded. Yet they still don't understand that this is why many Americans are disgusted. And wonder why we have one week to solve this problem.
[image description: Photo from Library of Congress of a failed bank in 1930.]

And I'm reminded of this piece I read on trust in government, ethics and politics:

The first step in this process is to be good citizens; we must demand of our candidates that they be genuine public servants, thoughtfully and courageously pursuing the public good, and we must welcome those who tell the truth, even when it is something we do not want to hear. We can only take that step effectively if we have a media equally committed to good politics and campaign structures that allow the best candidates to rise to the top.