When Fish are Held Hostage

When it comes to politics, I am most certainly an agnostic.

I'm not left or right of center, and sometimes, I'm not even in the center at all. With that said, I have no faith in our elected officials. But it doesn't mean I don't root for them. Not necessarily with bumper stickers and a tailgate party, however I would like to see the home team win once in awhile. And I don't mean a healthcare bill or a conversion to a flat tax. I'm talking about a crisis. We don't seem to win many of those. Some of these destructive events are self inflicted, others materialize through bad advice, and more often than not a crisis is inherited.

Our last one-term Democratic President had several he could call his own. First, their was a severe oil crisis, with significant shortages for us to fill our Oldsmobiles. In an effort to properly ration, we had to refuel based on the odd or even numbers on our license plates. If that wasn't enough for our humanitarian peanut farmer, he also had to deal with an Iranian Ayatollah with a penchant for taking hostages. The American Embassy in Iran was captured, and thus one of the lowest points in American morale was born. The longer these Americans remained under siege without a formidable plan for an end date, the President and his reputation were also held hostage. And it went on for a total of 444 days.

So now, another President is traveling quickly down the One Term Highway. He, like his predecessor, has a crisis he can call all his own. Although this is a domestic issue, it is ironic that it once again involves oil. BP's runaway spill in the Gulf of Mexico has fully blossomed into another elongated political morass without a plan or near term solution.

Our hostages have been replaced by fish that have either been rendered deceased or on the brink. Marine life cycles in the region have been disrupted, jobs have been lost, and we have another President long on rhetoric about penalties and punishment, but short on a cogent stop gap measure. I think we've seen this movie before, and we all know the ending. Approval ratings plummet and national morale sinks into the cesspool.

But I'm still rooting for a win. I hope that someone, somewhere can help put an end to the flow of poison that continues to kill life and jobs on a daily basis in the Gulf.

If the fish could talk, they'd be rooting too.