We deserve it

Socialist Leads U.S. Senate Race in Vt.

Bernie Sanders jabs at the air, his flushed face a sharp contrast to his unruly white hair. Yet again, he pummels Washington, the Congress and the president.

"The government that we have today in the White House, the House of Representatives with Tom Delay, the Senate with Bill Frist, is the most right-wing, extremist government, perhaps in the history of the United States," he tells labor activists at a May Day celebration in the century-old Labor Hall.

"Time after time they pass legislation that benefits the rich and the powerful, and they pass legislation that hurts the middle class, working people and low income people." ...

In his eighth term in the U.S. House, the independent socialist has carved out a career in Congress as a Congress-basher. Now he is setting his sights on the Senate, and everyone agrees he is the man to beat for the seat now held by the retiring Jim Jeffords.

The fault, dear voter, lies not in our elected officials, but in ourselves. We elect them; we deserve whatever we get.

If we elect a socialist who spouts rhetoric about "bridge the gap between rich and poor" and how government "ought to do" this and that, we have no right to cry over the requisite tax hikes, and how the attempted redistribution of wealth backfires and hurts the lower income brackets.