RIGHT ON, MR. PRESIDENT!

While extremist knuckleheads are threatening the lives of the President and members of Congress because of their differences of opinion on health care reform, our Commander in Chief steathily went to Afghanistan today to boost morale of troops and, hopefully, kick Afghanistan’s president in the butt. To get this war -- and the one in Iraq -- over with, so-called leaders like Afghanistan's need to step up.

President Obama shows that he can multitask, while his opponents are stuck in the mud.

O Brother Where Art Thou?

As the vote on President Obama's health care reform nears, I've been struck by the lack of very public support and cajoling from Harlem's Rep. Charlie Rangel, the former chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee who is now enmeshed in all sorts of investigations into his ways and means of doing personal business with government resources.

We should be seeing Rangel, a senior member of Congress, all over the media landscape, to persuade and reassure we the people. He should be there with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she misses no opportunity to use media for the message. I'm sure he's doing some wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, but a more public face is sorely missed at this critical time.

Why So Many of Us Are Mad at Congress

A whole lot of us, including me, are officially unemployed. If we are lucky, we can collect unemployment benefits each week -- welfare. But our do-mostly-nothing Congress members each gets paid a minimum of $174,000 per year and has access to what is called the "Cadillac" of health care insurance. I have absolutely no health insurance. It's triage for me and my two cats. Which ailment do we take care of out of my shrinking pocket at this particular time? Or do we resort to chicken soup and Vicks and meditation and dipping our toes in healing waters and other home remedies?

Official unemployment is in the low double digits (10%?); the unofficial, we know, is much higher.Why doesn't Congress know what we know and DO SOMETHING? Well, probably because they have those "Cadillac" options.

The summit meeting the President recently hosted proved that politics trumps all. Even as the President bends over backwards to come up with some kind of compromise that Republicans and nervous Democrats can agree to, they are sitting on their hands while looking to the possibilities of their prospects in November elections.