When guys on Capitol Hill look like Beavis, Butthead
So there I was, banging on the defenseless little television beside my desk. So outrageous was the grotesque humor on the small screen that I thought the cleaning crew had flipped over to the Comedy Channel. But no, the dial didn’t lie; it was exactly where I’d left it. The ludicrous scene was live coverage of the U.S. House on C-SPAN. And it was not for the faint of heart. I certainly hope no impressionable children were watching.
Lobbying reform. You remember that, don’t you? In the aftermath of l’ affaire Jack Abramoff, Congressional Republicans were falling all over one another to get in front of any camera they could find, promising real lobbying reforms. No longer would lobbyists be able to buy the votes of good, decent, God-fearing Republicans, whose only goal in life is to selflessly serve their constituents (et tu, Duke Cunningham??).
Whatever….
Surprise, surprise…guess what’s happened in the interim? Yep, you guessed it; absolutely nothing. Now Congressional Republicans are relying on the short attention span of the mainstream media and the American sheeple to push through a series of measures that represent reform in name only.
Gee, whodathunkit? Republicans lying…what a shock, eh??
The House Republicans’ designated point man on lobbying “reform,” Rep. David Dreier of California, was wending his way mendaciously through an opening statement.
Dreier said the bill he was trying to cudgel into consideration by the full House was “bipartisan.” It is not.
He said it was “thorough.” That’s a joke.
He said it was “bold, responsible, common-sense reform.” Wrong on all counts.
The House-managed cameras kept such a tight focus on Dreier that I couldn’t see if members of either party were falling off their leather-covered seats in late-morning laughter.
Dreier, halest of fellows, talked a great game — with a straight face even — but for a single problem: He was lying. Baldly and badly.
Hey, if lying and prevarication works for Our Glorious Leader, why wouldn’t other Republicans follow suit? The Worst President Ever has already demonstrated that lying to the American sheeple has no detectable long-term consequences, so why should Congressional Republicans be held to a different standard?
The bill is designed to get the ruling Republicans past the November election. Period. Their objective: to keep control of the House with a minimum of change in the way the majority party has come to do business there in its 12 years in power. That, in effect, is “pay to play.”….
Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., correctly labeled the Republican-dictated terms of consideration “an insult.” To voters as well as to the House itself.
No sooner had McGovern sat down than Dreier hopped up to unexpectedly yank the resolution from consideration. It seems that off the floor, Republican renegades (in this case some unlikely challengers of the powerful) were threatening revolt. GOP chiefs of the House Appropriations Committee demanded that if they had to come clean about “earmarks” - those multibillion-dollar boondoggles slipped into spending bills in the middle of the night - so should members who stick similarly sweet provisos onto merely authorizing measures.
I’ll spare my fair readers the rest of Hines’ tale of the comedy that was the Republican photo op at a Washington gas station. That incident, though, when combined with their farcical attempt to pass a “lobbying reform” bill, merely indicates that Congressional Republicans really have only one goal and concern: getting through November’s mid-term elections without getting hammered. Why else would Republicans float the patently ridiculous and insulting proposal to give Americans a $100 rebate to compensate for the high price of their votes gas? Frankly, IF my vote were for sale, $100 won’t even get you in the door.
Man, if Republicans had set out to deliberately insult Americans, including their Conservative base, they couldn’t possibliy have done a better job?
Based on the latest silliness to emerge from the Republicans in Washington, might I suggest a new slogan for their mid-term election campaigns??
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES.
Hey, like you’ve got a better idea?
