Can't we do better than this?

Four names: Harry Reid; Mitch McConnell; Nancy Pelosi; John Boehner.

I cannot imagine a scenario involving those four people being involved in any venture in which I had a say-so. Starting a business? Nope. Planning a deck party? I don't think so. A sit-down dinner of southern roast and veggies? Not in this lifetime. Facebook friends? Bahahahahahaha!

If this quartet of bunglers is the best the two major political parties running this country can do, we're in a world of hurt.

In the past six years or so, the quiet demeanor of Harry Reid has been as effective as a two-legged, toothless junkyard watchdog. Mitch McConnell's prickliness and abject pomposity reminds one of a third-tier evangelical preacher who is relegated to pitching a holey tent at the edge of backwater towns and subsisting on handouts from a dozen or so curious ruralites. Nancy Pelosi couldn't inspire an alcoholic to follow her into a free-drinks-today-only bar. And, john Boehner is, let's face, just a mean-spirited attack dog for the rich and richer, insurance companies, the NRA, and the oil lobbyists

It's no wonder Congress is regarded as 1) useless, and 2) dangerous.

People who truly don't like each other pour forth pulpit venom that is infectious (aka, Sen. John McCain used to be a calm, nice guy and now he's a bitter bad-mouther who lashes out at any person of the opposing party ... and even old friends of the same party with whom he disagrees).

The key word here is frustration, which starts with the same letter as fear and filibuster.

Both parties are fearful of losing whatever sliver of power they think they have, but are fairly well content to keep playing the same cards time after time hoping for different results. Take that penchant for creating a legislative disaster and throw in the new twist for an old legislative gimmick -- the filibuster -- and you have a government that is encased in ice; it cannot function, cannot move constructively.

In the past four years, the GOP members of Congress have evoked the threat of filibuster more times than Congress in total did in the past several decade. But there's a difference in the filibuster today and the filibuster of old. The filibuster used to be a very effective way to hold up "unsavory" legislation but the opposers had a price to pay: They had to hold the floor by, well, filibustering ... continuously holding the floor through rhetorical recitation.

Back when high collars and swallow-tail coats were in style, legislators read for hours from the Bible, catalogs, newspapers or made up poetry or stories on-the-sport ... anything to hold the floor of the House or Senate and hold up a vote on legislation they found onerous.

Now, they simply threaten a filibuster and the legislative process grinds to a sudden halt.

There's talk of changing the accepted rules back to the original intent of the filibuster and requiring opponents of bills to literally "hold" the floor and try and talk a bill to death.

Don't hold your breath till that happens. The GOP will threaten a filibuster in order not to change the filibuster rule ... and the status quo will remain unchanged.

What a mess. And before you start pointing fingers ... we voted these yahoos in and allow the bozo-ing to continue unabated.