Churchill's worst form of government

It sometimes scares me how much I rely on Jon Stewart to tell me what I think about the world. Then I remember that, left to my own devices, I would devolve into a rabid partisan cyborg principally interested in advancing the cause of the Blue Team, and I resume my indolent consumption of Daily Show analysis. That being said, I found the "Meet Me at Camera 3" bit from the June 8 episode troubling. In a nutshell, Stewart took the Administration to task for failing to act decisively on, really, anything (the oil hemorrhage, financial regulation, health care, closing Guantanamo) and rather hiding behind the excuse that "it's complicated." The bit was funny, which I'm sure was the point*, but it's a good excuse for me to resume talking about something that's been bothering me. These problems are complicated. The oil is hemorrhaging a mile underwater. We either have the technology to do something about that or we don't, and I'm pretty sure the only member of the administration with a Nobel Prize in a physical science (Energy Secretary Steven Chu) is, in fact, on the case. Why are we angry at a man (Obama) we elected to craft and execute our laws for not also being an engineering genius on par with the late great never Montgomery Scott?

[*Hi, for those of you who haven't met me, my irony detector is broken, so this all may sound rather silly.]

I can't remember exactly when or why, but a few years ago, I heard a piece on NPR about history of the idea of a "dictator." The expert being interviewed claimed that, in the early 20th century (I believe in the aftermath of the Great Depression), people (or at least newspaper editorial boards) were crying out for someone to step in and be a dictator. The blatantly obvious failings of society appeared to be symptoms of bureaucratic gridlock and nothing breaks gridlock better than, I'm going to say it, a capital-D Decider (man, that felt good). I sometimes get the feeling that liberals (where I'm using that term to encompass everyone who voted against John McCain) want that now. They don't understand why merely electing Barack Obama did not solve all of the institutionalized problems that have been gradually overwhelming our government and culture for the past 20 (30, 40....) years. Yes, the situation with the oil is awful. It's not going to stop being awful anytime soon, nor will it stop when BP finds the technological silver bullet to stop this particular instance of oil gushing all over the place. As this Slate piece argues, as long as there are people buying oil, there will be people and critters dying from it somewhere (much in the same way that we will never win the War on Drugs as long as there are people willing to buy cocaine). We will never have meaningful universal health care as long as we are not willing to universally pay for it (you know, through taxes). Financial reform won't happen until we as a society realize that the absurd prosperity of the housing bubble was absurd, unstable, and to be avoided at all costs. Guantanamo won't close (though it does seem unconscionable that the Commander and Chief can't or won't just order this one) until Americans stop treating terrorism like it's the number one killer of people between ages 1 and 1,000,000 (a good friend once pointed out to me that Americans think they can live precisely this long given the proper application of national security and medical technology).

I guess what I'm saying is, "we are the generation who bought more shoes and we get what we deserve."**

As near as I can tell, we'd all better find the right dictator or become teachers.

[**No, I hadn't heard the song before writing this post, but I've seen the quotation as the signature line to enough emails and, out of context, it seemed appropriate.]