Redstate

Tick-tock or ding-a-ling?

By AcademicElephant Posted in Democrats — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

You know how sometimes it feels like time is moving really really slowly? Those times like a cross-country flight in the back of coach when there's no food and you don't like the movie and your laptop battery is dead? Or when you're tricked into attending someone else's child's school play and it turns out to be "The Seagull" as presented by Mrs. Ellington's fourth grade? Or a bad case of the stomach flu that has no remedy but to "take its course?"

Something that should take hours or even a few days suddenly yawns in front of you like an eternity.

Conversely, you know those times when you want to make time stop at a precise moment that is so wonderful and filled with joy that you never want it to end? That perfect powder run through the trees? Your weddng? That last-minute trip that worked out perfectly, even though it should have been a disaster? Oh, you lament, why does it have to end? Can't we just freeze the clock right now? Put this time in a bottle?

It seems that these phenomena have occurred simultaneously on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's House webpage. It comes down to an issue of perception.

Read on...

Ms. Pelosi's page currently features a timer to count down the "100 Hours" that she has promoted as the opening salvo of her tenure as Speaker. Six of her pet projects are to be addressed during this allotted time, which most humans measure as a little over four days. But not Ms. Pelosi. Sure, "100 Hours" sounds good--sort of like a super-quick and efficient version of "100 Days"--but let's not get too literal with that "linear time" thing because there's a lot of good stuff here to enjoy. The minimum wage will be raised. Drug prices will be subsidized. Big oil will be punished. It's all so exciting that Ms. Pelosi appears to want these 100 hours to go on forever, and so they shall.

The timer has been stopped.

It will only count, you see, when Ms. Pelosi decrees that it shall. It will not mark the time the House spends eating or sleeping. Or taking the day off to watch a football game, or wasting time talking about dreary old Iraq. During those periods, for all intents and purposes, time stops. It begins to tick anew when legislation sacred to the "100 Hours" is debated. And so, although to some of us it seems that Ms. Pelosi's speakership has already dragged on for a tedious, nail-grating eternity, according to her clock only 23:34:00 hours have passed. Not even a quarter done. At this rate, they're going to be at this until April.

Look, Nancy Pelosi won her right to be Speaker and I don't grudge her her fun, but this is ridiculous. If she knew she needed a couple of weeks to get her legislative priorities off the ground, how about talking about 1000 hours, or 10 weeks, or however much time it will actually take? Is reality, at least in terms of time, so very hard to bear? All I can say is that for those of us feeling rather like toads under a harrow these days, time is hanging a little heavily on our hands. It would be courteous, not to say merciful, of the Speaker to start time again so we can make some real progress through the next two years.