I tend to read The New York Times on a pretty regular basis, mostly in the online form because I’m not rich enough to pay $1 each day for the privilege of reading about what’s going on in a city 1,200 miles away.

The local Austin paper (the Austin American-Statesman) is a nice example of what cow chips look like in print. Its editorial staff is notoriously out of touch with local opinions: for example, they have once again endorsed Governor Rick Perry for re-election, even though Travis County usually votes against him.

Since the rest of the paper is fluff pieces cobbled from the newswires of other units owned by the same media conglomerate, I am generally forced to look elsewhere if, say, I want to know what’s going on in the rest of the world. There’s a lot of NYT in my world and a lot of BBC, and every so often, just for a laugh, I’ll turn on Al-Jazeera, which isn’t any better than most of the English language news-channels (it’s skewed just as badly in the opposite direction), but their sense of the melodramatic strikes me as humorous.

Where this is all going is that most of the media outlets — the ones that have taken a break from Ted Haggard, Saddam Hussein, and prediction’s about what’s going to happen next on Lost — are focused on what’s going to happen on Tuesday.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Tuesday is the midterm election in the United States, and it’s the chance for the American people to make up for their zombie-esque performance in the 2002 and 2004 elections by expressing their discontent with the current administration where it hurts: at the ballot box.

As I mentioned the other day, Texas is in no danger of joining the blue state list any time soon. I tend to joke that since I live in one of the suburbs, across the county line from liberal Austin, that I and my partner comprise the entire Williamson County Democratic Party. My joke got an unpleasant reinforcement when I went to cast my ballot in early voting (here in Texas, we can vote at any point two weeks prior to Election Day, with the added bonus that we don’t have to do it at our assigned precinct’s polling station). Even though I checked off the straight-party box on the ballot, I still had to fill in a number of holes where there wasn’t a Democrat running: Republican or Libertarian? Republican or Libertarian? I tend to go with the Libertarians, since they tend not to be in favor of banning stuff, but this is Texas, so one never knows.

Anyway. For those of you out there still trying to make up your mind about what to do on Tuesday, let me offer some choice excerpts from a biting editorial in today’s New York Times: “The Difference Two Years Made:”

… [T]he Republican majority that has run the House — and for the most part, the Senate — during President Bush’s tenure has done a terrible job on the basics. Its tax-cutting-above-all-else has wrecked the budget, hobbled the middle class and endangered the long-term economy. It has refused to face up to global warming and done pathetically little about the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

…

For us, the breaking point came over the Republicans’ attempt to undermine the fundamental checks and balances that have safeguarded American democracy since its inception. The fact that the White House, House and Senate are all controlled by one party is not a threat to the balance of powers, as long as everyone understands the roles assigned to each by the Constitution. But over the past two years, the White House has made it clear that it claims sweeping powers that go well beyond any acceptable limits. Rather than doing their duty to curb these excesses, the Congressional Republicans have dedicated themselves to removing restraints on the president’s ability to do whatever he wants. To paraphrase Tom DeLay, the Republicans feel you don’t need to have oversight hearings if your party is in control of everything.

…

This election is indeed about George W. Bush — and the Congressional majority’s insistence on protecting him from the consequences of his mistakes and misdeeds. Mr. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and proceeded to govern as if he had an enormous mandate. After he actually beat his opponent in 2004, he announced he now had real political capital and intended to spend it. We have seen the results. It is frightening to contemplate the new excesses he could concoct if he woke up next Wednesday and found that his party had maintained its hold on the House and Senate.

If you’re tired of the way this country is headed, get out and register your disapproval on Tuesday. If you like where this country is headed, get out and register your approval on Tuesday. Either way, get off your ass and vote.

Tags: politics, Texas, media, New York Times, elections, current events, on my soapbox