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Reaching Across the Aisles and other faux pas

this was written by me five weeks ago and never published to the blog - it seems even more fitting after the Tuscon shootings.

I am a bit of a political/news junkie - though the fixes can be few and far between these days since I'm weary of the depth of discord. So, for several months now I have remained silent - I've written not one word of political observation or belief since many weeks before the election.

However, I feel the need to break that silence with the recent political 'debate'. I use that term - 'debate'- loosely since there does not seem to be a whole lot of debate in the truest sense of the word. There is no intelligent banter - instead it seems there is a whole lot of yelling, positioning and close-mindedness. While it's not a new phenomenon - it does seem to be escalating since the Presidential campaigns of 2008.

The silence-breaker for me is the complete and total discord on both sides of the aisle for the recent 'compromise' reached by the President and the Republican party over the extension of the tax credits and extension of unemployment benefits. The far left criticises the President for agreeing to the extension of the tax credits and the results of the mid-term elections. The far right criticizes the President for the extension of unemployment benefits and the state of economy overall.

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It's not a popularity contest, but ...

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