"I Have You (sic) Answer"

One of the many wonderful lines delivered by Michael Constantine as "Gus" in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when he realized that he had the solution to a problem.

So, in that spirit, I think I have a way out of the mess in Washington.

Often when there is a problem in another country, that its' leaders seem incapable of solving, we send in one of our elder statesmen to broker a deal. 

Jimmy Carter watches elections.  George Mitchell goes to the Middle East.  Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush try to help in Africa.

It isn't that we don't have great men and women in this country.  Putting aside politics, we have some of the brightest minds and kindest hearts around.

But so do other countries.

Nelson Mandela.  Bishop Desmond Tutu. Aung San Suu Kyi.  Malala Yousafzai.

These are terrific people with one predominant motivation in their lives.

Peace.

So, if the outsized egos in Washington would put aside their petty name calling and political posturing for one bloody minute maybe, just maybe, someone like those mentioned above could come in and help bridge the gap between the warring parties.

Part of the problem is that both sides have valid points in their arguments and both sides believe they are right.

The issue is finding common ground in an attempt to fix the broken mechanism of government.

No one trusts government anymore to do the business for which it was created.  Politicians are considered to be untrustworthy even by the constituents that send them to office.

We are in so much dire, systemic trouble that we, collectively, hide our heads in the sands of sports, pornography and food and elevate the likes of Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber to the level of hero, idol and role model.

Television is full of escapist examples of our unwillingness to grapple with our real societal problems.

Instead we gorge on Wife Swap, Maury and the "Real" Housewives of Beverly Hills hoping that the morning after will bring back the Happy Days of Mayberry and Bedford Falls.

In case you were wondering, the era of Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best ended with the colossal failure of the sixties and we are only now feeling the true impact of the lunacy of our excesses.

We let go of the values that had helped shape this country in favor of free sex, drugs and rock and roll.

We let go of heros like Dwight Eisenhower in favor of transient imitations like Dwight Yoakum.

Eleanor Roosevelt was replaced by Hillary Clinton and Mahatma Gandhi was replaced by Bono.

People go to Washington not so much to serve the voters who trusted them to fairly represent their districts as they do to make money, gain influence and secure a job and pension for life after politics.

So maybe someone like Malala, who took a bullet for her beliefs, is the kind of person who can shame the imbeciles nattering on about Obamacare and The Shutdown Blame Game and persuade these, so-called, great men and women to actually do something equally heroic.

Their jobs.