Congress

Howard Kurtz:

But seriously, folks, has Congress become something of a joke?

Are these toothless lawmakers no longer capable of passing anything with bite?

Consider:

Folks on the Hill were desperate to demonstrate their deep concern about gas prices. So Republicans-- Republicans !--said maybe they'd pop the oil industry with a new tax. Then the industry howled. Never mind.

And how 'bout giving each taxpayer 100 bucks so they can fill 'er up two or three times? That was the GOP plan. John Boehner called it "stupid." Never mind.

Democrats want to investigate oil company price-gouging. Great. Will that produce another barrel of oil?

So the House cooks up some thin gruel just to show that it's doing something. (Not that there's much the Hill can do to get prices down in the short term, but everyone has to maintain the fiction that government can fix this problem, preferably by November.)

Read the whole thing.