Stand and Deliver
by ChrisNovember 19th, 2005 12:44 am
I had a very strange Friday evening. I’m not one to forgo a nice dinner out and a trip to the bar on a Friday night for much of anything, let alone watching C-Span. As you might have guessed that’s just what I did tonight and something very odd happened. I may be delusional, but I think I just saw the moral authority of an entire nation transferred, however briefly, to a single congressperson. I’m not really in any condition to give sound analysis of what just happened in congress. You may have noticed that I gave up the trip to the bar, but I never mentioned skipping the drinks.
Anyway, I’ll start by saying that the biggest mistake that congressional Republicans made this evening was allowing Representative Jean Schmidt from Ohio to say a single word, let alone allow this very green congressperson to call a very well decorated Marine with over three decades of service a coward. Whatever you think of his positions and his congressional record, I doubt anybody with a sane nerve cell in their cranium would look at that man, listen to him speak, review his service record in the most cursory way and call Murthra a coward.
Not that I think it was going anywhere anyway, but that’s where the whole effort to fuck over the country with smiles and glee sunk. Not only did that forced Schmidt to attempt to appear contrite and ask that her words be struck from the congressional record, it also forced the party in power yank every decorated veteran in their caucus from their comfortable Friday evening routines to give speeches on the house floor.
While nobody with a sane nerve cell in their cranium would ever question the patriotism of a Republican congressperson who is a veteran of foreign wars, one might question, without a hint of guilt, whether or not they are all the most articulate spokespersons for any policy, let alone a failed one in desperate need of spin. Not only that, but it forced Curt Weldon, of all people, to get up and talk about what a noble human being and public servant Jack Murtha is, gently trashing the rhetoric of some of his fellow Republicans.
On the other hand, what Murtha did this evening was brilliant. He stood in the face of an onslaught of used car salesmen and rhetorically challenged Republican veterans and didn’t blink. Not only that, he really didn’t even do so much as to acknowledge their arguments. He didn’t stoop to that level. The used car salesmen and their bullshit rhetoric seemed beneath him. He said exactly what he thought without hesitation. He advocated for the military, he advocated for the men and women in service, he advocated for his constituents and he advocated for his country.
Clean, straight, powerful and from the heart. Not a used car or a bit of lime green polyester in sight. Stand and deliver. More like that please.
More on the actualy policy when I sober up….That could be a while.
