Slow down, the voters may have some other ideas

ONE OF THE MANTRAS that Republican congressional leaders have energized since the election is that the people have spoken. Well, yes and no, depending on whether it means that the GOP clones are now free to do whatever the hell they want to do to defeat President Obama in 2012. That would include the latest babble from Michelle Bachmann that Obama is "anti-American".

But the problem with all of this breast-pounding on the right may have shown up in the latest McClatchy Newspapers-Marist poll that blunts some of the notions that the pols want what Americans want. One of the findings, for example, is that a majority of voters (51-44 pct.) like Obamacare and some even want to expand it. (Are the two new guys on the block in Ohio, John Kasich and Mike DeWine, listening?) Unsurprisingly, voters in the higher tax brackets, Tea Partiers and conservatives want to repeal it. Likewise, a majority of voters would not complain if the Democrats allowed the tax cuts for the wealthy expire on Dec. 31

So where does this leave the next Congress that will be throbbing with newly-elected right-wingers operating in the midst of the established GOP lions? Hard yo say, other than it could be a the new version of Edward Lear's Jumblies, who went to sea in a sieve.

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