Week of 02/14/2011

How Fast They Flash Out
– by David Matthews 2

My, oh my, how quickly they forget…

Not even one month holding the reigns of power in the U.S. House of Representatives and already the “unstoppable party” is starting to unravel.

GOP Congressional darling Chris Lee (not to be confused with veteran horror actor Christopher Lee) out of the blue (or should that be “red”?) announces his resignation after being caught trolling Craigslist for a hookup. The lipstick proof in this case was a shirtless photo that he sent one woman in Maryland, claiming to be a “divorced lobbyist” when in fact he was a married member of Congress from a political party that claims to champion “family values”.

Since Mister Lee is from New York, you’d think that he’d know better. After all, what brought down that state’s governor not too long ago? A horndog hook-up. Oh, wait, wrong party. Yeah, who cares what DEMOCRATS do, right?

And then we have the announced departures. Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, GOP whip, is leaving. So is Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, and renegade Senator Joe “Whiny Dog” Lieberman of Connecticut. They’re not leaving quite yet, but they’re also not going to be running for re-election… although you can’t really trust Lieberman on his word until he actually packs his bags and physically leaves Washington. They join Democrats Jim Webb and Kent Conrad as they cash in their taxpayer-funded golden parachutes.

Funny… not too long ago Kyl was holding up efforts to extend unemployment support to the millions of Americans who need it until Big Corporate can live up to their half to the bailout deal, and here’s Kyl primed to be getting about $135,000 a year for the rest of his life… paid for by the very taxpayers that he spat upon. How’s that for gratitude? And it’s probably a fair bet that he would never have to worry about finding work thanks to his friends in think tank foundations and lobbying firms and the speaking circuit, unlike the millions of Americans he claims to represent. It must be nice to be in a position where work can be treated as an “option”. Yeah, they’re so “like us”, aren’t they?

How about the GOP’s new “We Support the Constitution” kick? Remember their pledge to not bring forth any bill that they don’t first cite the constitutional authority? Yeah, that turns out to be a bold-faced LIE. Just look at HR358 and ask yourself where the “constitutional authority” is on it.

What’s wrong with these people? Are they inherently brain-damaged so they don’t have any short-term memory?

Or have the politicians stopped trying to pretend to really care anymore? After all, they already have what they wanted after the election. They have the power, and if people have their heads turning towards the 2012, they won’t be caring about the games going on in the here and now. Oh, hey, how about those guys at GPAC?

Let’s get brutally honest here… if the politicians - especially the GOP - want to continue to convince the masses that they have somehow “learned their lessons” of their previous failings, they certainly are not trying hard enough!

Faux-patriotic talk about “respecting the Constitution” and “citing constitutional authority” are nothing more than empty words if you won’t even live up to the very rules that you touted to get elected. And do we really… REALLY… have to remind politicians that trolling for sex on Craigslist is NOT a good thing to do, especially if you’re supposed to be a happily-married elected official in a party that CLAIMS to defend the “institution” of marriage? Never mind “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, how about some simple “Don’t Do” from the party that claims to be entitled to dictate to the great unwashed about how to live their lives?

This is precisely the reason why this commentator has been a critic of the election-to-election mindset being foisted on us by the media and the political bosses. The masses have been told that these “new” politicians are different than their rancid predecessors, but we have no reason to believe anything they have to say if we are not given any room to see if they are practicing what they were preaching on the campaign trail.

Rancid sewer water does not become healthy just because you slap a “new” symbol on it. Likewise, rancid politicians do not become “reformers” just because they claim to be.