The best solution to all the controversy

It’s my purpose today to reveal a solution to all the commotion swirling through the swampland of Washington, D.C.

We have investigations investigating the investigators, for goodness’ sake, but there’s a cut-to-the-chase resolution available to bring it all to a conclusion in the fundamental structure of our democracy.

Before I enlighten my fellow countrymen with this wisdom, I need to address some feedback I’ve gotten concerning a recent column where I spoke of climate change.

Some letters to the editor and emails sounded a common theme of characterizing me as a “climate denier.” I actually didn’t share my own views of whether I thought the climate was changing.

It was the position of new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt that I cited. As a reminder, here’s what he declared in front of a large audience assembled to hear from him on the matter of environmental policy.

“It’s not a question about whether climate change occurs. It does,” he said and continued. “It’s not a matter of whether man contributes to it. We do. The question is how much do we contribute to it, and how do we measure that with precision?”

Some readers apparently translated Pruitt’s statement as my own. But wait, he obviously is not denying that the climate is changing. And, neither am I.

I eagerly welcome reader comments whether they express agreement or an opposing view. It’s the whole purpose of political commentary, and I embrace it fully.

Here’s a suggestion — you may ignore it if you wish. Please read what I actually write instead of projecting your assumptions onto me. Such seems only fair.

OK, now we can return to the main topic I promised at the opening.

Here are some things we know about our national spleen-splitting anxiety.

Since the votes were counted last November, there has risen up a determination to somehow remove the duly elected president from the office he won. Among some there is hatred of him unlike anything most of us have ever seen.

If they succeed we will have a full-blown constitutional crisis on our hands. Such a development will probably ruin the economic boom that is increasing the opportunity for all Americans to become more prosperous in the pursuit of happiness.

The principal players in this mission are, as we all know, passionate members of the party currently out of power and their national news media allies in our face throughout every single day.

Some of those consumed journalists and commentators have lost their reputations and violated the trust of those who once respected their perceived independence.

We have a completely compromised special prosecutor who has appointed a team of political partisans relentlessly pursuing the president and ignoring the crimes of the losing candidate in the last election.

Congressional investigations that most of us have lost count of have produced nothing other than more controversy and speculation driven by their partisan desires.

Here’s how to resolve all of this the way it ought to be settled: Let the people of our great country decide. It’s not a novel idea; it’s the way it is supposed to work in this, the freest land on earth.

Just around the corner is an election year. We the People will be choosing all 435 members of the U.S. House and one-third of the members of the Senate.

If voters rebuke the current Republican majorities and hand the Congress over to the Democrats, so be it. Message delivered, and received.

Then we enter a presidential campaign season and the voters, not some other lesser manifestation mired in the kind of corruption we are witnessing now, will prevail.

The defective alternatives we are experiencing are failing, and it’s time we let the essential method of our system of self-government resolve this mess.

This story was originally published December 8, 2017 at 5:00 PM with the headline "The best solution to all the controversy."