You're Going to Re-elect 90% of Them

Remember how Congress was facing its lowest approval rating ever a couple months ago? Yeah, that was before trillions of our dollars were handed over to the business equivalents of Timmy from South Park.

This is who designs business models for the Big Three.

It's not just terrible economic decision-making that's causing Americans to lose all faith in their elected officials, however. Scandals - sweet, juicy, crack-for-a-24-hour-news- network scandals - have dotted the Congressional landscape like acne on a face that was already uglier than Nicole Richie's. And neither party is immune; take a gander at The Whig's rundown of current Senators and Reps who have spent some time on Santa's naughty list:

In 2006, for a total of 6 weeks leading up to the election, you could not turn a page or to a news station without the scandals of Republicans Mark Foley and Duke Cunningham being repeated and condemned by the Dems and their grunts in the media. Ultimately, because of these two buffoons, the entire Republican party was looked upon as being corrupt, and majorities were lost in both the House and Senate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi proclaimed that hers would be "the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.". This is shaping up to be one of the sincerely dumbest statements she's ever uttered, and that is really saying something.

The genesis of this current and unfolding financial crisis can be directly connected to the sub-prime mortgage bomb, which, at it's very core, has the fingerprints of several powerful, prominent Democrats. Senators Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer, Representatives Barney Frank and Maxine Waters, and yes, even Barack Obama co-opted Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as their own mortgage slush fund, forcing these entities to dole out loans and mortgages to people who were not qualified to receive them.

And that's not all! Many other stellar, ethical tendencies have produced some fine prospects for the good of our country. Things like Chris Dodd's sweetheart CountryWide mortgage deal, Barney Frank's "ex-partner" (who, among other things, Frank paid to have sex with) running what amounted to a brothel out of the basement of his house, and Senator Harry Reid passing legislation that all but guaranteed the firms of his son and son-in-law getting bundles of money from Nevada real-estate lobbyists.

All noble endeavours, of course, with the best intentions for the country in mind.

Now, to say that many, many Americans currently view the entire Republican party as corrupt merely because of Foley and Cunningham is kind of like saying that many, many Americans currently view Rod Blagojevich as corrupt because he spent taxpayer money on one of his terrible haircuts. But the point is this - nearly every American is upset with how Congress is doing its job, yet, like clockwork, when the next election rolls around, over 90% of these people will be told by the voters, "Great job! We want you to stay in charge!" On average, over 95% of incumbents win their fights for re-election, and any given cycle seeing less than a 90% rate of incumbent victory is rare. 2010 is not likely to be one of those rare years. So, you - yes, you, America, with your mountains of debt that would make the Himalayas jealous - will be sending most of the current Congress back to keep doing the job that you're pretty sure a trained platypus could do better.

Don't feel bad. It's not entirely your fault. This has been going on since the days when we were actually intimidated by Canada (I know, right?). The only way to fix this is with a little reform - actually, I should probably say Change, it's pretty trendy - to our electoral system. Gosh, if only someone had come up with a good idea for that.