I'm sure everyone has seen the "Where's Waldo?" cartoon. Well, it is a lot easier to find Waldo than a real Democrat in Tennessee.

Recently, four turncoat Democrat congressmen endorsed Zach Wamp by saying that he should ignore his pledge to stay in office for 12 years and run again. First of all, these psuedo-Republicans could have never done this in such an organized fashion without the blessing of Phil Bredesen. It is well known that he and Corker are tight so the differences between the parties is somewhat blurred already. The bottom line is that Wamp is on the House appropriations committee and these guys want to make sure that Tennessee gets its share of the pork pie.

Zach, breaking a promise intentionally means that you were lying all along. Yes, I said it, LYING. For those of you who need moral instruction, lying is wrong. It was wrong when Clinton did it and it is just as wrong when Wamp does it.

Even worse it is breaking one of the ten commandments that you people on the Christian right have been trying to slap all over the walls of our public buildings. Maybe if the commandments had been on the walls of our public buildings, Zach would have gotten the message. The selective morality of Wamp and the religious right never cease to amaze me.

The behavior of these turncoat congressmen should not be a shock in Hamilton County. The Democrat leadership in our county has been doing this for years. With people like Ward Crutchfield and Randy Button kissing up to the power structure it is no wonder the party has been neutered and become a sad joke. Most of this is due to the chummy behavior of Demoplicans and Rebublicrats in this county. These people see each other socially, kids go to private school together, and are in business together. It is no wonder that there is absolutely no Democrat representation for the vast majority of working people in this county or state. On local issues the lack of a difference is even more stark. Republican and Democrat leadership alike have sold us down the river by supporting almost any kind of funding for development downtown, no matter how ridiculous, to enrich the Lookout Mountain power structure while our industrial base has continued to deteriorate.

If you need any more proof, look at the lack of support of the Democrat hierarchy for John Wolfe in the last election and the fact that Ward Crutchfield has never had any serious opposition in a Republican district.

What is becoming painfully obvious is that there is no difference in the political parties as we now know them. They play this sadistic game of good cop/bad cop in regards to the unimportant, wedge issues but basically agree on the important issues affecting our everyday lives. While we are distracted by this act, we ignore the things that affect us directly like war/peace, jobs, trade deficits, budget deficits, out sourcing, trade agreements, etc. All this does is show once and for all that there are only two parties is this country, the money party and the rest of us.

What I suggest to people who really care, is to hold all political contributions to any of these turncoat congressmen, along with the state Democratic party, in order to send a message that there is a difference between going along and getting along. The actions of our local officials and these turncoats is beyond outrageous.

Tim Price
jat-55@msn.com