What's important now?

Congress is becoming more and more involved in the irrelevant issues of the day at the expense of what is really important. For example, congress' involvement in the baseball steroid mess including Roger Clemens and Brian Macnamee's charade coupled its involvement in the NFL's camera gate scandal (Patriot's recording competition's practices) tells us more about ourselves and our priorities than we care to know. After all, our elected officials thought these issues were important enough to focus on, placing the war in Iraq, the economy, health care, the mortgage crisis, the growing federal debt, falling dollar and global terrorism on the back burner. Ah, what joy it must be to stick one's head in the sand and escape the reality of existence. Somehow I am no longer surprised by our politicians and their priorities. Our elected officials represent our views and were we not the country enthralled by Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and missing w's on typewriters as Islamic Terrorists were plotting our demise? On the eve of 911 the Chandra Levy and Gary Condit affair made headlines on CNN and Fox News for weeks. Why does this all matter? Somehow I believe that the public discourse represents what we believe is important and addresses what we feel capable of handling effectively. Congress' warped sense of priorities tells me we lack leadership and solutions on the real issues that affect us. In the short and long run that cannot be a good thing. So what do your priorities say about you? Mark Schnurman is director of human resources at GFI Capital Resources Group, New York, N.Y.