Who speaks for you?

We went sailing Sunday, and the long stretches watching the water go by were conducive to deep thinking. So I tried to remember:

When was the last time I was represented in the House of Representatives by someone who didn’t make me fume, wince or cringe?

It wasn’t yesterday, certainly: Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, mother to the vile Kwame, is my representative now. Her tripartite name seems born to be married to “grand jury investigation.” CAR-o-lyn CHEEKS Kil-PAT-rick. GRAND JU-ry in-vest-ti-GA-tion. It’s not quite iambic pentameter, but it works. She leases a vehicle, at taxpayer expense, to carry her around her district. True to the Kilpatrick School of Public Service, it is a Cadillac.

Before her, Mark Souder. No need to rehash that one.

Before him, Dan Coats. I remember Coats most for being author of the Communications Decency Act, although, to be sure, this was when he was a senator, after he’d been replaced in the House by the Goober. The CDA was overturned by the Supreme Court and by other courts in dribs and drabs, but what I mainly recall about it was, the law appeared to be written by people who still thought “the internet” = America Online.

Before Coats, I lived in Ohio. Ah yes — how can I forget Chalmers Wylie? Wylie made headlines when he tried to strip the Library of Congress of $103,000, the precise dollar amount it took to produce Braille editions of Playboy magazine.

Think about that for a minute.

If nothing else, it gave the city’s newspaper columnists enough fodder to fatten a feedlot. “I’m only feeling it for the interviews” was but one of the witticisms our own came up with.

For all the college degrees among its voters, Columbus was in general not well-served by its delegation when I lived there. In fact, this reverie was also prompted by the death this week of Donald “Buz” Lukens, another right-wing hypocrite. He left Congress after he was caught on tape negotiating with — Kirk, correct me if I have the details wrong — the mother of a teenager he wanted to come over for some sexytime. As I recall he was fond of African-American girls, whom he would require to wear fluffy white bathrobes.

Again, the wags and goofs and talk-show hosts gathered at the trough for a heaping pile of slops. My favorite was the classified ad that ran deep in the Dispatch real-estate listings, for a piece of property close to a middle school, touted as a BUZ LUKENS SPECIAL. May God bless all classified-ad takers and their dear, dim dictation. I’m sure after the first week, it’s all Xs and Os.

When I was in college, registered to vote in Athens, it was some guy named Clarence Miller. All I know about him is, he didn’t court the student vote.

I’m probably forgetting somebody, but these are certainly the lowlights. As an American, I hope to someday have the experience of sending someone to Washington whom I feel represented by, someone who, if they don’t share my beliefs, at least understands them. Where do I have to move, guys?

Some quick bloggage today, because I have to start the errand mambo in mere moments:

Jon Carroll salutes the police blotter at the Arcata Eye again:

“Thursday, April 15 9:21 a.m. A TransAm’s inherent awesomeness was kicked up a significant notch with an impressive burnout demonstration (a symbolic representation of the young buffoon’s ever-so-agile sperm motility, though he likely wasn’t thinking about that, or much else) at Sunset and Western avenues. But the display of reproductive prowess took a humiliating plummet when the mouth-breathermobile slammed into a fire hydrant, unleashing a prematurely orgasmic fountain of wa-wa.”

And so on. (You know, a TransAm does have inherent awesomeness. More than a Prius, anyway. You Californians, always harshin’ the domestic product.)

You know, at the military academies’ graduations, when the graduates all throw their hats in the air? I always wondered how they went about retrieving them. Turns out they don’t.

And now I am off.

Posted at 9:27 am in Current events |
 

55 responses to “Who speaks for you?”

  1. brian stouder said on May 25, 2010 at 9:57 am

    I’ve always been proud of Dick Lugar, more or less; and up ’til his odd exit, Evan Bayh was always my guy.

    I pretty much always liked Jill Long, too, while we had her…and we have a chance at getting Dr Hayhurst into congress, which would be almost as amazing as when Indiana went for President Obama.

    I did get a laugh at another site, wherein local folks were deprecating bare knuckled “Chicago politics”, while not even commenting on the (what struck me as HUGELY significant) detail in Sylvia Smith’s big Souder interview, wherein he states that he decided to retire six week ago, and specifically AFTER the primary but BEFORE the election!

    Talk about a breach of faith! And his amen corner is still on the hook

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  2. 4dbirds said on May 25, 2010 at 10:02 am

    My rep is Frank Wolfe. A republican but at least he doesn’t embarrass us.

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  3. basset said on May 25, 2010 at 10:10 am

    “Domestic product”? Trans-Ams, at least some of them, were built in St. Therese, Quebec… I think one of the California GM plants may have produced them as well.

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  4. alex said on May 25, 2010 at 10:13 am

    For many years my rep was Jan Schakowsky, and before that Sidney Yates, who retired. Neither ever made me cringe.

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  5. nancy said on May 25, 2010 at 10:15 am

    Brian, I totally spaced on Jill Long. Add her to the good-guys list.

    And I, too was struck by that part of the Souder interview, and wondered why it didn’t draw more attention. That guy obviously felt he wasn’t an elected representative, but some sort of philosopher-king.

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  6. MarkH said on May 25, 2010 at 10:21 am

    Nancy, I remember Clarence Miller. When I was employed at the radio statio in Lancaster (his home town, I believe) he would visit at campaign time, of course. He knew everyone, the owner, manager and news director (along with everyone else in town) by first name; a classic white-haired politician. By this time (’76 – ’79) he was 60, but seemed older. I just learned he lasted in office until 1992 and is still alive at 93. As production manager, it was my job to record his ads. He came in the studio with two aides, sat down and said to them, “alright, what am I doing and why am I here?”. The script was put in front of him and off he went with his oratory. The Hocking Valley is a large district and it’s no surprise he wouldn’t need the OU college constituency. It was noted on one site that he was a follower, never intitiated any legislative action himself, but lent his name as co-sponsor to lots of others’ bills.

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  7. MarkH said on May 25, 2010 at 10:31 am

    SPEAKING of OU — Nancy, a few days ago you shared the adventures in debauchery of pi beta phi at Miami U.

    Same sorority, different chapter, this time a month earlier at your alma mater. They were not to be outdone:

    http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0524101sorority1.html

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  8. Jeff Borden said on May 25, 2010 at 10:52 am

    My representative used to be Dan Rostenkowski. Later, it was Rahm Emmanuel. Now, it is a guy named Mike Quigley, an amateur hockey buff who supposedly has taken hundreds of stitches as a result of his club hockey play. He’s a decent guy who sleeps on a cot in his office in D.C.

    Man, the damage report on Smoking Gun is something else. I’m not surprised by the spilled beer, the detritus of a food fight or vomit, but who the fuck defecates into a urinal???? How do you even do it? I’ve never been prouder to have been a GDI in college.

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  9. Sue said on May 25, 2010 at 11:19 am

    Jim Sensenbrenner. Sigh.

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  10. Bob Uphues said on May 25, 2010 at 11:25 am

    My rep is Dan “Weasel” Lipinski, whose father, Bill, was the rep of this area for two decades. Old Bill, well he decided after winning the 2004 primary that he was going to retire. So the Democratic Central Committee wracked its collective brain and came up with — ta da! — Dan Lipinski to run in the general election. The only slight problem was that Dan was a professor at the University of Tennessee at the time and hadn’t live din Illinois for a decade. Well, no problem. He moved into the district and won the general election against a Republican opponent who didn’t campaign. I mean not at all. Wouldn’t even complete the usual questionnaires, didn’t have a website, wouldn’t return phone calls. In 2006, there was some token opposition in the primary, but Dan won easily and faced the formidable Ray “Spanky the Clown” Wardingley in the general election. Really. The guy was a clown you could hire out for parties and such.
    Dan has served his working class Southwest Side constituents most recently by voting against Obama’s health care plan mainly on the basis that he doesn’t want federal dollars used to fund abortions. Can we all get a vote on what we want federal dollars used for? That’d be great!

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  11. LAMary said on May 25, 2010 at 11:34 am

    My guy hasn’t pissed me off too often.

    http://www.ontheissues.org/CA/Xavier_Becerra.htm

    My senators are both ok with me too. I don’t always agree with them, but they’ve got more balls then most of the male Democratic senators.

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  12. Deborah said on May 25, 2010 at 11:42 am

    Danny K. Davis is mine. His district is mostly in South Chicago but there is one long thin finger that gerrymanders north up Lake Shore Drive (to catch the Lake Shore Liberals). One time when I called his office to register my disgust about something going on during the Bush administration the woman who answered the phone asked what my address was, when I told her she claimed Davis was not my rep. I had to argue quite a long time before she finally looked it up and admitted that in fact he is my rep. He embarrassed us quite a bit when he genuflected to Rev Moon during some absurd ceremony, but other than that I don’t hear that much about him and frankly don’t pay much attention to him.

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  13. B ryan said on May 25, 2010 at 11:42 am

    Who doesn’t love the Trans Am (especially those of us old enough to remember seeing “Smokey and the Bandit” during its first run)? I always tell my wife that when I do buy my midlife crisis car it won’t be some sporty foreign roadster — it will be a 1969 Camero painted blaze orange with white skunk stripes on the hood and jacked up in the back. Hopefully I will keep enough of my hair to grow the required mullet.

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  14. beb said on May 25, 2010 at 11:50 am

    As a child my congressman was Bircxh Bayh. He was my kind of guy. His son…. is a good reason to have anti-nepotism laws. Since moving to Detroit, even the Democrats like dingell have been embarassing. The only decent politican I’ve ever voted for was Mayor Dennis Archer. A good and honest man who saw the handwriting on the wall and did not run for a second term. Opening the door to Kwame Kilpatrick…..

    Who, I hear, is even now on the road to Jackson Prison for a stint that could be as long as 5 years.

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  15. Jenflex said on May 25, 2010 at 11:51 am

    My congressman is hawtter than yours: Aaron Schock, darling of TMZ himself. Succeeding (not replacing) the mature, wise, practical, and effective Ray LaHood.

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  16. MichaelG said on May 25, 2010 at 11:59 am

    Now that I’ve moved from Auburn to Sactown my rep is Doris Matsui, a Dem. Doris is a 65ish woman who acceded to the seat upon the death of her husband Robert Matsui and then was elected to the seat. Bob Matsui was a well respected and honest guy who represented the district well. Doris is a nice woman who votes the right way and says the right things but isn’t a ball of fire. She’s good enough as a place holder until she decides to retire.

    I have the same two Jewish mothers for senators as does Mary. We could do a lot worse although DiFi pisses me off some times.

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  17. Jeff Borden said on May 25, 2010 at 12:06 pm

    Californians, Does Carly Fiorina have a chance at the Senate seat? I’d hate to see her do in the Senate what she did while running H-P into the ground. I found it funny during the 2008 campaign when she declared that none of the candidates –including the McCain-Palin team she backed– could run a company. I remember thinking to myself, Gee, neither could you.

    I don’t have a clear enough grasp of Golden State politics to know whether Barbara Boxer is vulnerable.

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  18. Deborah said on May 25, 2010 at 12:30 pm

    Jeff B, were you in Chicago when Donald Rumsfeld ran Searle into the ground? I didn’t live here then but have a relative who was a big businessman in Chicago and knew Rumsfeld back then. He said he was a complete jerk. These people who ruin businesses and then run for office know everything about how to amass power but they don’t know how to run anything once they get to the top.

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  19. nancy said on May 25, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    I’m always puzzled by voters who fall for that “I’m a successful businessman, therefore I will be a successful public administrator” line. The skills required for excellence in both don’t always overlap very much. It’s like me saying I’m a great horse trainer, so hire me to run your restaurant.

    Especially when you consider that CEOs tend to be pretty top-down men and women, and great politicians have to be consensus-builders. Can anyone think of a case where someone made a smooth transition from one to the other? Michael Bloomberg, maybe. Anyone else?

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  20. Sue said on May 25, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    Nancy, that line works because municipalities are businesses and it makes sense that a businessperson should be able to apply the same techniques to make a municipality run successfully.
    Except the techniques don’t work, because:
    Taxpayers think their taxes should cover everything, and also that their taxes are too high. Always.
    A very simplistic comparison would be to say that it would be like someone walking into the most expensive restaurant in town and assuming it’s a $10 all-you-can-eat buffet.
    Taxpayers aren’t going to get the level of service they expect at the cost they are willing to pay. Ever, ever, ever. The big flaw in this argument is that when you are a customer, you assume you are the most important person in the store; your potential business is crucial to the owner. Taxpayers don’t understand that every other taxpayer in the area also assumes they should be at the head of the line, that they should be the most important customer; they should get their street plowed first and no cuts should be made to whatever program they think is most important. Hundreds or thousands or millions of people all think the same thing and assume that the problem is mismanagement when they can’t have a service at the price they are willing to pay. And no amount of promises from savvy businesspeople assuming they can give the customer what they want when the customer usually can’t take his business elsewhere will change that.

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  21. crinoidgirl said on May 25, 2010 at 12:58 pm

    Yup, Kilpatrick was sentenced to 1.5 to 5 years. Needless to see, he’s appealing:

    http://www.wwj.com/Kilpatrick-Sentenced-To-5-Years-In-Prison/7295118

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  22. Catherine said on May 25, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    Adam Schiff is my rep these days. He doesn’t suck.

    The first rep for whom I ever voted was Leon Panetta. Yes, him. Did you know he started out as a Republican & actually served under Nixon in the Office of Civil Rights? He quit when Nixon tried to minimize enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Panetta then changed party affiliations & won his house seat, in which he served for something like 10 terms. I’ve never heard a constituent say a negative thing about him.

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  23. Catherine said on May 25, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    Jeff, I don’t know if Carly has much of a chance but I hope she spends a bunch of her own money to find out, like Meg Whitman. Stimulus!

    The CA governor’s race, specifically the Republican primary, is kind of overshadowing all the other races right now. Whoever wins the primary will likely face Jerry Brown, who is not bringing the excitement at the moment.

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  24. Connie said on May 25, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    Despite my liberalism, I will claim a couple of past Repub reps with whom I was happy. Jerry Ford was my rep all through my childhood, he regularly came to visit all the small towns in his district in a trailer office which he parked next to my dad’s office. We all felt that we actually knew him.

    I was also happy to have Lee Hamilton as my rep for many years, and somewhere I have a photo of the two of us standing at a podium together. The Democrat who replaced him long after I moved away was a friend, and our girls played on the soccer team, so here’s for Baron Hill. He had been a great state rep who was always willing to listen.

    These days I have Joe Donelly, wish he weren’t so blue doggy, but I’m mostly OK with him. I am less than half a mile from the line between Donnelly and Souder’s district, so am glad to be on the Donelly side. Chris Chocola (R) was in that position prior to Donnelly, and in the last redistricting the line was purposely redrawn so that Chocola lived half a mile outside his district. Didn’t seem to bother him or those who continued to vote for him.

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  25. MichaelG said on May 25, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    The times are so goofy and the mood is so anti-incumbent and campaigns so viscious that I really don’t have a feel at this point for how well Fiorina will do against Boxer or how Whitman will do against Jerry Brown – assuming the races shake out this way. The Reps are in a headlong dash to the right.

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  26. LAMary said on May 25, 2010 at 1:33 pm

    We’ve got Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman doing that successful business person stuff. I wouldn’t trust either of them with the grocery money.

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  27. Jolene said on May 25, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    My rep is Jim Moran—mildly embarrassing on ethical grounds, but he votes the right way.

    My senators are Webb and Warner, both intelligent men who accomplished interesting things before going into government. Both are, as Democrats go, somewhat conservative, but not of the Ben Nelson ilk.

    Warner would fit in the “successful businessman who also succeeded in government” category. He made lots of money as an early entrant in the cell phone business and was then elected governor. Modernized the government in various ways, overcame budget shortfalls, and left office w/ high popularity ratings. Now in his second year in the Senate, he played a big role in writing the just-passed FinReg legislation.

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  28. Peter said on May 25, 2010 at 1:56 pm

    Nancy, Chuck Percy comes to mind. He ran Bell and Howell before he was a US Senator. And Peter Fitzgerald ran several suburban bans before he had his one term in the Senate. He turned out to be an honest Illinois Republican, so you can see how he alienated everyone.

    My current rep is Mike Quigley, and I think he’s far better than the three before him – Rahm Emanuel, Rod Blagojevich, and the Republican congressman who I can’t even remember his name.

    When I was growing up Sidney Yates was our congressman, or as my Dad called him, the Sleeping Hebe. That guy’s last 20 years was on autopilot.

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  29. LAMary said on May 25, 2010 at 2:22 pm

    Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner are spending millions of their own money running ads calling each other liberal.

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  30. Jeff Borden said on May 25, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    Deborah,

    As luck would have it, Donald Rumsfeld was on the board of directors of Tribune Co., which I covered for more than 11 years. They were a tight-lipped bunch –it took me years to eventually get to know a couple of them well enough that they would say non-descript things– so I had no dealings with him. I had heard bad things about his time at Searle, but my knowledge of that industry is virtually nil, so I can’t say if he was a terrible executive or if the company was buffeted by other things.

    I’m glad Nancy has made the point about how good business executives will not necessarily succeed in government. I’d rather there were more business professionals in Congress –we have far too many lawyers in those chairs– but I’d also like to see blue-collar representatives, skilled trades, health care professionals, educators, etc. represented. It’s hardly surprising our legislation can seem to impenetrable when it’s being crafted by legal beagles. But, as Nance notes, just because you have successfully run a widget company does not mean you can be an effective representative or political executive. I would imagine Barack Obama’s time as a community organizer –fuck you, She Who, for mocking that as some left-wing exercise– has been invaluable to his political career because he is used to dealing with a wide variety of people with a wide variety of wants, needs and desires. He knows how to build consensus. What would Jack Welch do in the Oval Office? My guess would be. . .not much.

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  31. ROgirl said on May 25, 2010 at 3:21 pm

    Kwame Kilpatrick — the man so arrogant one jail term wasn’t enough. He had to go for 2. Maybe he’ll get religion this time. Nah, probably not.

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  32. James Moehrke said on May 25, 2010 at 3:39 pm

    My Congresscritter is George Miller (CA-7) who I mostly like, but I’m no fan of his authoring the No Child Left Behind farce.

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  33. adrianne said on May 25, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    The first Congressman I voted for – Barney Frank in Boston. He’s still there, giving them hell.

    Current congressman – Mo Hinchey, who represents a classic New York gerrymandered district that stretches from the Hudson River across to Binghamton and up to Ithaca. He’s usually on the side of angels, made his chops busting up mob-controlled sanitation companies in New York.

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  34. MaryO said on May 25, 2010 at 3:55 pm

    Oh Maryland, my Maryland…Chris Van Hollen, and Barbara Mikulski/Ben Cardin. I lived in Nevada ‘way back in the 70s-80s, and had Jim Santini, and Paul Laxalt/Howard Cannon. In New Mexico in the 1980s, it was Manuel Lujan, and Pete Domenici/Jeff Bingaman.

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  35. paddyo' said on May 25, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    Mine is Diana DeGette, reliably liberal . . . and before her, the final six years of Pat Schroeder.

    But when I lived in Nevada in the ’70s and early ’80s, it was mostly a wasteland. MaryO just mentioned Jim “Minerals” Santini (and he sounded like he had a mouth full of rocks). But worse, at one point we elected a senator (I still cringe at having been a member of the press there when he was voted in for a single term) who outdid the representatives: Las Vegas haberdasher Chic Hecht, a Republican master of the malapropism.

    His best line ever:
    During debate on whether to put the national nuke waste dump in Nevada at the old nuclear testing ground (yes, that saga went on for more than 30 years until Obama pulled the plug on Yucca Mountain), he said (I think on the Senate floor):
    “Nevada must NOT become a nuclear suppository!”

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  36. Dexter said on May 25, 2010 at 4:14 pm

    I live in OH-05. Delbert Latta was my rep for years; another prominent one was Paul Gillmor. Gillmor…up until he bought a condo in Tiffin, claimed Old Fort as his home, even though he had not lived there for decades. See, the good servant owned nearly million-dollar homes in Virginia as well as Dublin, OH.
    Well, Dublin is hours away from the Fifth District, but what the hell? No matter to him, as he was within the law. And we all wanted our congressman to be comfortable while “back home” on the golf course which bordered his yard.
    He also, oh this man of the people, kept an ancient Ford Tempo automobile somewhere and when he toured der hinterlands for his infrequent town meetings, why, he’d tool up to the cameras driving this beater. When the dog and pony show was over, the car went back into the barn until it was needed for another photo op. Wow. I wonder what brand of car whisked him away from Dulles or Reagan or whatever airport his jet used to take him to his Virginia mansion.
    Gillmor died two and a half years ago and now we have Bob Latta, son of old Del. Oh, yeah…he’s a repugg, too.
    When I lived in Indiana, Edward Roush was my rep until 1976 when another goober beat him. That goober was J. Danforth Quayle. Ed Roush was a helluva guy…he cared. He served us well for four years, then this fucking Quayle beat him.

    “It’s like me say­ing I’m a great horse trainer, so hire me to run your restau­rant.”–nance—-
    …or “hire me to fix this muthafuggin’ Katrina thang.”

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  37. nancy said on May 25, 2010 at 4:17 pm

    I can top that, Paddy:

    Earl Landgrebe, U.S. rep from Indiana’s second district, during the Watergate hearings: “Don’t confuse me with the facts!”

    Wikipedia says his follow-up line was, “I’m going to stick with my President even if he and I have to be taken out of this building and shot.” Instead, he was defeated, in a heartening show of Hoosier common sense.

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  38. Scout said on May 25, 2010 at 4:19 pm

    My Congressperson is Ed Pastor. Not a ball of fire but definitely always a dependable vote for my interests. A rarity here in AZ. That’s where the good news ends. My Senators are Grandpa McCain and Vile Kyl. Nuff said.

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  39. MichaelG said on May 25, 2010 at 4:22 pm

    LAMary, Meg knows what to do with the money. Give it to Goldman-Sachs.

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  40. Deborah said on May 25, 2010 at 4:29 pm

    Off-topic: I’m back at work after a week in Abiquiu, NM and I find out today via the internets that there will be a Breaking Bad episode to air May 30, called “Abiquiu”. I have not seen the series at all, not because I don’t want to but I never think of it and have no idea what day/time/channel it comes on, I guess I could look it up. I will have to watch this one. Where does it take place? I thought it was Nevada? I know some of you here follow it religiously.

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  41. hexdecimal said on May 25, 2010 at 5:01 pm

    Like Scout @38, I have Grandpa McCain and Vile Kyl. However, for now, my Congressperson is Harry Mitchell. From my view Harry’s a pretty faithful Democrat. For an Arizonian anyway.

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  42. Dexter said on May 25, 2010 at 5:41 pm

    I enjoyed the Jon Carroll piece on the Trans-Am. I was a VW Bug and Ford Falcon wagon kind of guy, but I know a few guys who owned Camaros and Trans-Ams. Some were gearheads, some liked the styling and some liked them to show off to the public.
    They were the worst drivers, worse than half-blind-old women, worse than mean hillbillies with gun racks in their rear windows, worse than young inexperienced drivers.
    This is the viewpoint of a cyclist, of course. I have mentioned this before: the best drivers are young mothers in minivans, who always give a cyclist a full lane if no cars are coming at them, while Camaro drivers don’t even acknowledge we are out there. Now that I am old and wiser, I generally avoid narrow-edged two lane roads, knowing these drivers are out there, narrowly missing people who still ride these roads.
    The current most-annoying drivers are these people in my neighborhood who keep driving their vehicles even without mufflers. Cops used to ticket drivers with excessive noise from exhaust…no more. It is nerve wracking.

    Detroit Blues Break…Jimmy Thackery w/ special guest Jimmy McCarty
    at Callahan’s
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4CfMjceIds&feature=related

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  43. Bill said on May 25, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    Deborah, Breaking Bad is aired on AMC at 10 Eastern (9 Central) Sunday nights. It’s set in Albuquerque and environs.

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  44. coozledad said on May 25, 2010 at 6:29 pm

    Brad Miller. About the best there is. If there were a couple hundred more of him we wouldn’t have had the banking disaster.
    Does anyone remember when Dan Quayle confused Buzz Lukens with Buzz Aldrin? I thought we’d reached the nadir of human stupidity with that one. No such fucking luck.

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  45. MichaelG said on May 25, 2010 at 6:40 pm

    Good ones? One of the best is Henry Waxman from, I think, Santa Monica.

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  46. paddyo' said on May 25, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    Deborah, that also means “BB” is at 8 p.m. Mountain on Sunday. Also, it is repeated immediately thereafter, at 9 p.m. MT, 10 CT, 11 ET . . . AND, after a “Mad Men” rerun, it comes on a THIRD time, 11 p.m. MT, midnight CT and 1 a.m. ET.
    Clear?
    Yeah, like mud!

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  47. Deborah said on May 25, 2010 at 7:14 pm

    Wow (see Brian it’s rubbing off) I had no idea Breaking Bad was set in New Mexico. What rock have I been living under? If I had known that sooner I wouldn’t have missed an episode. I won’t miss it now. Wow!

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  48. moe99 said on May 25, 2010 at 7:25 pm

    My representative since about forever has been Jim McDermott, an out there liberal. But he’s been something of a dilettante, never trying to rise through the hierarchy (or perhaps being blocked by those in power, who knows). I think it’s time for someone new to get involved, however, I think he’s there for the foreseeable future.

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  49. Linda said on May 25, 2010 at 9:34 pm

    Marcy Kaptur is my rep, and she and I mostly agree. Even though I hardly ever agree with Sen. George Voinovich, he doesn’t embarass me. When I sent him e-mail voicing my support for health care reform, he sent me back a letter opposing it. I entirely disagreed with it, but it wasn’t an exercise in dumbassery–very thoughtful conservative arguments that I disagreed with, but respectful and non-hysterical.

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  50. Pam said on May 25, 2010 at 11:29 pm

    Pat Tiberi, my rep, never votes my interests. He also never acknowledges the emails I send him that make my positions on various issues clear to him. Of course, I never vote for him. I would vote for anyone over him. TV panned his fat face during one of President Obama’s speeches (the You Lie! speech). He had the most obnoxious smirk on his face the entire time. It was truly juvenile. Too disgusted with him to comment further.

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  51. Denice B. said on May 26, 2010 at 12:32 am

    From Carolyn CHEEKS Kilpatrick’s polluted womb to the friendly confines of Jackson State Prison for y’all’s boy Kwame. The family must be so proud….

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  52. Dexter said on May 26, 2010 at 1:19 am

    Kwame’s courtroom speech follows..16:17…it’s a long one.

    http://www.freep.com/article/20100525/NEWS01/100525057/1321/

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  53. Mike said on May 26, 2010 at 5:34 am

    My rep is Brad Childers. Bout the best thing to say is he’s a democrat from Mississippi; which itself is a wonder.

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  54. derwood said on May 26, 2010 at 7:34 am

    I have Dan Burton….need I say more?

    -daron

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  55. Kim said on May 26, 2010 at 9:00 am

    My first congressman was Henry Hyde (author of the Hyde Amendment). I remember the first time I met him face to face – he came into my office on his sweep-n-schmooze of local newspapers (my dopey publisher was over the moon for the guy). He was a very big man, and before I could say, “That chair’s sorta broken” he deposited his large self into it and another sorta broken chair was the only thing that broke his fall and saved his neck. If only …. Whenever we’d see him in the years that followed a group of reporters would say, “There’s Henry … Hyde!”

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