Eric Wattree

I want to thank Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her responsible Democratic colleagues, and one Republican, for standing up for the American people in their historic passage of the health-care bill in the House.

I just saw another one of those videos. You know, the type that Fox "News" loves to show of the clueless teabagger with tears in her eyes, complaining that she wants her country back.

At this point, Barack Obama's Presidency could go either way. He can either become one of the greatest Presidents this country has ever known. Or he can go down as an exciting experiment that went bad.

It seems the GOP is finally coming into its own.

Both its numbers and rhetoric reflect that it is rapidly becoming more of a cult than a political party.

We tend to give politicians all the credit for who we are as Americans. But, politicians, with their self-serving agendas stifle the American spirit rather than enhance it. It is Average Americans, doing what they do in their daily lives, that makes us who and what we are. In honor of those Americans, I’m launching this series called “A Tribute to American Diversity.”

[Author’s Note: I've started getting ugly responses from the GOP wingnuts already. So I decided to add a little to the end of this piece in bold.]

Can you just imagine what the Republicans would do with their man in the White House and a majority in Congress the size of the majority that the Democrats currently enjoy? They'd be invincible. The Republicans are horrible at governance, but they do know how to wield power. Just look at the mayhem they managed to commit under George Bush. So why is it, with their huge majority in Congress, the Democrats are struggling to pass a healthcare bill that would benefit every family in America?

The Republican Party is a coalition of three separate constituencies with confluent interests. The first group is made up of traditional conservatives. These are highly patriotic Americans who believe in limited government, the primacy of the people over government, and fiscal responsibility. The other two groups that have coalesced within the GOP are much more malevolent, international business interests and social bigots. It is the former, international business, that controls the GOP.

When I came of age, one of the first things I did was to reassess my previous beliefs and attitudes. I discarded as invalid anything that didn’t stand up to logical, objective scrutiny. Even at that young age, I’d lived long enough to recognize that most problems are a direct result of our failure to re-examine our illogical views of reality. Most religious zealots fail to go through that process. They refuse as a matter of religious doctrine.

While viewing America's solemn commemoration of the eighth anniversary of the 9.11 tragedy, I began to reflect upon its many ironies. The first thing that came to mind was Dick Cheney's claim that the Bush administration's policies in response to 9.11 have kept America safe. But how can that be?