4/7/06

Given that they are today so much less efficient at creating legislation than George the Latter, and since the government itself is in the vanguard of a new world order that decides for itself which laws it will obey and which it will disregard, the quaint and venerable institution of the Federal Legislature has been grappling with the problem of what to do with itself. They are too ingrained into our school textbooks and our social mythology to simply cut off their own funding and send themselves home to look for productive jobs. Huge portions of the architecture and landscaping of our nation's capital, together with its security and cleaning and maintenance, are devoted to the preservation of this august but obsolete body of public servants. Their salaries, not to mention the redundant cost to American businesses of lobbying them into compliance with decisions already taken in corporate boardrooms, would be better used for tax relief for the embattled captains of industry.

Having applied myself to the search for a solution to what has become a major drain on our public revenues, and having made some effort to jump start my atrophied imagination with applicable historic precedent, I believe I am now able to divine that some fruitful, fiscally progressive changes are already occurring to bring the U.S. Congress into the 21st century. In my opinion, the legislative branch requires an even closer and more ceremonial relationship with the President and his handlers. The word "tethered" comes to mind, and with it the remembrance of George Frederick Handel whose famous Wassermusik Suite debuted in the summer of 1717. The orchestra was seated on a floating barge tied by an adjustable rope (volume control) to the royal barge of King George I. The King was fond of festive outings in which he and his entourage would float down the Thames fussing with their hankies and tossing food in the water and listening to baroque airs by means of this musical dingy which, like the Walkman into which it later evolved, would play your favorite tunes over and over again. If the King was feeling a little sad he could whisper a request to one of his aides and voilà, all of nature seemed to weep with the King. And when a sprightly thought whiffled through the royal brain, it was picked up and made universal by attentive horns and strings.

Congress appears far less ungainly of late, less confused and conflicted about its purpose in the great scheme of things than in previous eras of contention and filibuster. It is as though it had taken a lesson from Handel and adopted a little courtly decorum. The secret of graceful governance is for minority parties to abandon the ridiculous assertion of power where none exists and to assume as far as possible a pleasing and supportive posture. We see how well this works in 21st Century America. The President drops his fork; the Halls of Congress ring with dropped forks. The President orders the seizure of Iraq; the Congress declares that seizing Iraq is exactly what they would have done if they had been asked. The President is found to have told egregious pre-war lies on television; the Congress excoriates the knaves who misled their Commander-in-Chief. Photos and eyewitnesses confirm that the President's militia has apparently illegally kidnapped, rendered, imprisoned, tortured and killed hundreds of imagined enemies around the world; the Congress declares that the President's imagined enemies do not have rights. The President deliberately and clandestinely ignores a current statute and uses a government agency to spy on American citizens; the Congress quickly rewrites the law so that the President would not have broken the law if the new law had been in effect when he broke the old law, and makes the new law retroactive so that even though his crime was against the law when he committed it, it was now no longer even at that time against the law so he didn't really commit any crime. Complex legal conundrums like this require experienced lawmakers who can think on their feet and deal with space-time problems on short notice. They need to be right there behind the President like a 24 hour puppy scooper to set things right and prevent unforeseen odors from ruining the party.

Some in our amended Congress continue to misconstrue their function. The job of the Legislature is not to legislate but to legitimize, and the nearer they are kept to the royal source of law the more quickly they can approve it and declare it to be the will of the people. Likewise the Judicial should be ready to robe up and affirm that the intent of the King is in every instance identical to that of the Founding Fathers. Thus conjoined, like attendant barges on the river of history, the great powers of government achieve idyllic harmony. The King does always as he pleases, the rabble are duly represented, and the benign imprimatur of the judges assures the lawfulness of the whole ensemble, its oarsmen and jesters, its flags and fireworks and brightly colored inner tubes, its fishing bobbers and six packs and receding flotsam.

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