I don't care about what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do.

It's clear from yesterday's votes that it continues to be business as usual for the weenie Senate Democrats who continue to refuse to fail to use every legislative tool they have at their disposal to fight the Iraq/ Bush/ Republican idiocy.

I won't list out all the solutions progressives are practically SHOUTING at Reid and company (forcing actual fillibusters for a start) because the entire exercise continues to leave me frustrated. The whole D.C. establishment - government and media - are dangerously out of touch with the wishes of the vast majority of this country.

Last week's Petraeus testimony only forced to underline that fact. That does not bode well for the future of this country. It's one thing to have a deaf ear and it's entirely another to pretend that what you're not listening to in the first place doesn't really matter anyway. Especially if this country is governed by any form of a democracy.

Last Saturday we had dinner with a Marine EMT and his wife. He's been over to Iraq on several deployments spending huge chunks of time away from his wife and family. The financial impact has been severe and, at one point, his wife had to involve one of our congressman and the threat of a congressional investigation to work out a payroll issue with the Navy. I suspect that if the Webb amendment had been if effect and he'd been stateside longer, some if not much of this suffering could have been alleviated.

This guy is a super-patriot and a Marine to the core (pardon pun) and he feels after years of this war that the system is broken and we just aren't taking care of those that are serving now and have served. Why are we allowing this to continue and what can we do to change it?

That's the frustrating thing because we really don't have an answer to that last part of the question.