View From The Middle
Don't Tell Me Elected Officials Aren't Their Own Worst Enemies
By Charles Rogers

How can we NOT be amused - or at least bemused - when we see the antics of our elected representatives…especially lately? Here we have a member of the New York City Council, surely a prestigious position if I ever saw one, who has proposed a ban on feeding pigeons in the city, suggesting a fine of up to $1,000 if you're caught doing the dirty deed. And to be the Supreme Administrator of such a plan, the councilman has proposed a new "perk" position called the "Pigeon Czar."

Councilman Simcha Felder is the legislator who came up with the idea of the ban after his office received complaints from some of his constituents who said they'd had it with the city-friendly birds and flatly refused to continually watch the sidewalks and outside subway stairs become constantly littered with "you-know-what" and then be "you-know-whatted" upon themselves.

As much as I am a lover of animals and birds and fish and living things in general, I must say pigeons and their you-know-what can be a hazard not so much to nostrils, but to hats and new coats. As a means of alleviating the problem, we might propose some stringent - albeit unnecessary - methods. For instance, we could designate a certain place, say, within a park, where the dirty-but-well-dispositioned beasts can be fed peanuts and bread crumbs, etc., such as are currently in place for dogs. We'll call it a "pigeon walk" and if one of them tries to fly away with a piece of bread in his mouth, we'll station a "Pigeon Warden" (obviously subservient to the Pigeon Czar) outside the gate with a big, fat musket-type shotgun at the ready.

Pigeon czar indeed! I wonder if the public will be allowed to vote on whom their neighborhood pigeon czar will be. He - or she - will probably only have a two-year term, after all. Hell, the next step up has to be City Council Member, with, perhaps, Dog Catcher a step up from there!

Eventually, the graduated position in government will be Governor. Remember, if you start as a pigeon czar, you can learn an awful lot about the workings of government - from the ground up, so to speak, and, hey, it's not that difficult a journey to Councilman, Dog Catcher, Press Aide, City Hall vendor, mayor, state legislator and you can take over for Eliot Spitzer in, say, less than three months!

And that's just about the correct place for you! Once you're Governor, hell, you've got it made! Look at what Spitzer did: He started out at the top of the heap, with something like a sky-high, 60 percent approval rating. That was some kind of record, according to politico-watchers, when he won 69 percent of the vote (I'll bet you can't even remember who he ran against).

Then he took that sparkling record and, within two or three months,brought it down to 46 percent because of the fight he had with Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, resulting in what was called the Dirty Tricks Scandal. That still hasn't been rectified completely. Maybe forgotten, for now, but rectified? No.

But that wasn't bad enough for Spitzer; he then came up with this stooopid driver's licenses for illegal immigrants deal, which he thought would make him some kind of king. He, like too many other elected officials, didn't for one minute think that the citizens of his state (that's us!) could think for themselves . When he saw last week that it wouldn't work and that the majority of the people were saying, "whaddayou, kidding?" he stepped up to the podium and, of course, immediately blamed the federal government. At last count, his approval rating was down to about 33 percent and descending!

Do you think the public is becoming disillusioned with our elected officials? Try this on for size: As bad as our Republican president is, with about a 27 (and falling) percent approval rating, take a look at the Democratic Congress and please note that the public approves of them by a whopping nine percent. NINE PERCENT! In case your arithmetic is a little bit rusty, I'll explain: 91 PERCENT DISAPPROVE OF THE JOB CONGRESS IS DOING!

It's no wonder that we have lost confidence in those who represent us in government. Gone are the days when we could look up to these so-called leaders and be proud that our vote really counted. What with them putting their efforts into such outrageous projects as pigeon czars and driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and, oh, yeah, blaming others for everything, but not coming up with solutions themselves…and…and…You get the drift.

Pigeon czar indeed!