Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Rolling Stone: Inside the Worst Congress Ever
The cover story in last week's Rolling Stone, by Matt Taibbi, helped get my activist fires burning just a bit more uncontrollably than a six-pack of Octoberfest can smother. I've always thought that was the worst timing for an election, days after a major fall festival and the World Series. I suppose it's a hold-over from the good 'ole days, if the masses don't like the elections and rise up, well it'll be too cold for them to occupy anything for the long haul. Winter is no time for a seige.
There still exists in the back of my mind some revenant from catholic school civics which steadfastly refuses to accept some of the details of juvenille behavior that Mr. Taibbi alleges take places in the hallowed halls of the Legislative Branch. The story of Rep. Bill Thomas and his republican cohorts on the Ways and Means Committee rebuffing Rep. Charles Rangel from behind the door of an 'undisclosed' meeting. What the fuck? I'm supposed to believe that the Lions of House and the Senate sit around for five minutes and pose for C-SPAN, then tell their colleges in the minority to piss off while they go rewrite the bill in secret? That's so crazy?!?
I also appreciate Mr. Taibbi's willingness to describe a member of this congress as 'an asshole.' His descriptions of pay-offs and and ear-marks forces a man to use such words. To still give him the benefit of 'the honorable senator from . . .' seems like a too far of a step into crazy-land.
Most obvious reason to vote against the majority party next week:
The numbers bear this out. From the McCarthy Era in the 1950's through the Republican takeover of Congress in 1995, no Democratic commmittee chairman issued a subpeona without weither minority consent or committee vote. In the Clinton years, Republicans chucked that longstanding arrangement and issued more than 1,000 subpeonas to investigate alleged administration and Democratic misconduct, reviewing more than 2 million pages of government documents.
Guess how many subpeonas have been issued to the White House since George Bush took office? Zero -
(Rolling Stone, 11.2.6, pg 54)
What a bunch of fuckers.
