Category: Politicians Suck

There are a lot of symbolic moves going on in the halls of Congress these last couple of days. Yesterday, it came in the form of a vote on the Speaker of the House. Nineteen Dems voted against Pelosi, and one decided to go take a walk during the vote. It would have been even more, except the woman still controls Democratic committee assignments and may be out for blood of anyone who opposes her. Fortunately, some of our favorite Blue Dogs were among those voting against her – Pennsylvania’s Jason Altmire and Tim Holden, along with Oklahoma’s Dan Boren. (Other pro-gun Democrats I think worth mentioning are North Carolina’s Heath Shuler and Mike Ross of Arkansas.)

Today, the Democratic Caucus leaders tried to oppose the reading of the Constitution as an opener to the Congressional session. Some of the best reactions to this have come from other people, so I’ll gratuitously steal from them:

@ExJon: “Why do we think liberals hate the Constitution? Their reaction to its public reading is like a vampire facing holy water.”

@JimGeraghty: “Way to go, House Democrats. Your first act of 2011 is to strenuously object to reading aloud the founding document of the nation.”

@ExJon: “I hope C-SPAN has microphones near Pelosi while the Constitution is read. ‘I’m melting! MELLL-TING!'”

More lightbulb blogging over at Uncle’s. I thought about what a movement might look like, to protest Congress’ policy. Why don’t we all send Congress a bill for having to replace our light bulbs with CFLs? There’s some fixtures I have that I’ll just have to replace, because they call for clear bulbs. Send them the bill. They mandated this crap, let them pay for it! Oh, and be sure to include an environmental clean up charge, for the mercury in the bulbs. I’ll leave it to readers to decide whether or not to turn your local congress critter over to a collection agency when they don’t pay up.

It would seem that spending can get rather lavish when candidates who run in uncompetitive districts have to spend their campaign money. Not something I think the government should regulate, but good on the Tribune-Review for pointing this out. It would make me think twice if I had been a campaign donor.

Sorry for the light posting today. Will catch up when I get home. In the mean time, apparently Obama told a fat staffer to eat a salad:

One staffer was conspicuously overweight. The president, in an incident that Wolffe believes proves how caring the man is, took it upon himself to present the aide with a salad for lunch — “then listened to him protest that he could take care of his own health. ‘I love you, man,’ Obama said. ‘I want you to look after yourself. Eat the salad.’ ”

That tells you all you need to know right there. That also tells you all you need to know about Richard Wolffe and other Obama supporters like him, that this was taken as compassion rather than butting one’s nose into business it does not belong. This prompted Jim Geraghty to say:

Chris Christie for President: Because the commander-in-chief and leader of the free world should never be telling you to eat a @#$%^ salad.

We haven’t had a rotund president since Taft. Maybe it’s time.

Tam’s note on politicians:

It takes a special kind of hubris to wake up one morning and decide that what this world is lacking is your visionary leadership, and an even more perfectly-distilled narcissism to think that if millions of people don’t like you, the problem is with all of them.

Pretty much. It occurred to me this election how I’d feel to have a group of people surrounding me with my name on buttons, stickers, hats, all cheering me on and chanting my name. Answer? Pretty damned awkward. In fact, creepy would probably be a better word. I don’t think I could ever be comfortable with it. Would you be? Think about the kind of person who would be comfortable with it, and you see the issue.

That’s not to say there aren’t politicians out there motivated by public service, but you have to have a bit of a narcissistic streak to want this kind of job. I’ve generally found office holders at the state and local level tend to be more real people. The higher you go, the more perfectly distilled the narcissism. Makes sense if you think about it. In a state level race at best you’ll get a room loosely filled with people cheering you on. Many of them will be friends and people you know. But imagine a Greek themed stadium full of people, all set up just for you, projecting their hopes, dreams and aspirations onto you, all because you can read a mean speech from a teleprompter. That’s a fundamental flaw in the human species that transcends politics.

Upper Moreland Township, in suburban Philadelphia, wants to fine citizens who don’t lock their cars. Funny, I kind of thought the punishment for that was built-in.