Politicians in drag

The headline in today's birdcage lining is that the MLAs (Members of the legislative assembly) gave themselves large pay hikes just before adjourning for the summer holidays. I notice a little undercurrent of resentment among the denizens of the government office where I work, taking the form of, "I wish I were getting a 30% raise," and this is pretty normal. Naturally, the opposition raised a little hell, just as they always do, and I'm sure they'll take the money and run, just as they always do. Promises to roll back pay hikes seldom survive entry into office. The problem as I see it is how do we judge a politician's worth? In any other job you get paid according to how good you are, but how do you tell how good a politician is at his job. If you think of a political unit such as BC as an economic entity valued according to its productive capacity then how does the premiere's salary compare to the head of a comparably sized corporation? The answer is that the premiere gets peanuts, even with his raise. This province has a territory of 355,000 square miles, a long seacoast, forests, farms, schools, and a diverse population. The government in power is responsible for making and enforcing the laws and administering large programs. Good plumbers make more than our premiere does.
What bothers me more than anything else in politicians is their lack of balls. Now you would think the governator would have a set of balls, especially as he claims not to have used steroids in his body building days. But when someone becomes a greenhouse gasbag he's either stupid, lying, or pandering. Pandering is that special type of lie used to pacify a noisy idiot we don't want to argue with. And I see in the same paper images of Arnie and Gordie (Campbell, our premiere, whose name means 'twisted mouth' in Gaelic) all dressed up in Indian duds, presumably with ominous drumming pounding a beat in the background. Because if you're not willing to make an ass out of yourself how can you be a real politician. As eecummings put it, "An ass is something everyone has sat upon except a man." Perhaps they were doing a weather dance. Except in the modern style we throw money down the toilet as part of the ritual.
It makes me despair of democracy sometimes. Why don't we have politicians who are leaders? Why don't they have the balls to tell the truth? Why can't they just tell all the noisy SIGs to shut their traps? Why can't they explain in plain words to the people the plain facts? I do have some hopes that Fred Thompson is the kind of a guy who both knows what's going on and has the balls to tell people the plain facts. For instance that the new kind of lightbulbs that are supposed to be so good for the environment have mercury in them, an extremely poisonous substance. Too many numbskull ideas to list. Let's hear it for Fred. Tell it like it is, baby. I can't vote for you, but you know I was rooting for Sarkozy, too.