Shorter American Political System

Two separate incidents today, combined, tell you pretty much all you need to know about our political system at the moment.

1. The FTC has gotten over 30,000 complaints about those annoying robo-warranty-phone calls (I've gotten two on my cell & 7 on my work number, plus a bunch at home, all in the last few months). These calls violate the "do-not-call" registry; they're also a scam. After 30,000 complaints, the FTC does nothing. Then a senator gets one of the calls, complains -- and the robocalls are shut down at once.

2. Bush, having captured a bunch of people that he couldn't prove guilty in court (unsurprisingly, since at least some of them (that we know of) were innocent; plus his torture program made a lot of evidence inadmissible), set up a system of Military Commissions to try the people (since he just "knew" they were guilty) without all those annoying procedural safeguards that our normal court system has. Obama, having run on a campaign of change, has now instituted... Military Commissions with fewer annoying procedural safeguards than our normal court system has, albeit more than Bush wanted.

So what do we have?

1) 30,000 citizens count for nothing; a senator must complain before a law is enforced (but his complaint is jumped at instantly).

2) One party believes in junking all the procedural safeguards from the court system to try detainees; the other party only believes in junking some of them.

That about sums it up.

Greatest country in the world, baby; greatest country in the world.