Effective Leadership! (Sarcasm intended)

The voters spoke for Congress to get something done! I'm sure that going forward we are going to see a tremendous amount getting down and dirty to get things accomplished! I'm sure that those that were re-elected will start during the lame duck session to really show voters that we elected the right people for the Senate and House of Representatives!

I'm sure that the big things that are on the peoples' minds will be the first priority. I'm sure that tax cuts will be addressed immediately. Job's and unemployment benefits will be addressed immediately. After all, there is only 2 weeks left in this session of Congress and we need to get right to work. I'm sure the leadership will want to start on day one with an agenda and an inspirational speech to pump up our Senators to get things done quickly!! GO TEAM!!

All the attention is on Harry Reid to set the tone for this, perhaps, the most important lame-duck session of Congress in decades. Will it be agenda setting? Will it be a message of bipartisanship and Senatorial work ethic? I know it will! After all, this race for Harry was a little too close for comfort, and he won only because his opponent was less than formidable. Surely Harry got the message!

Sorry, Nevada voters. The big opportunity to change things up has gone to hell and your native son has screwed you (and the rest of us) over yet again. Harry's six minute snoozer to start arguably one of the most important lame-duck Senatorial sessions in decades was to waste the peoples' time talking about a football rivalry between Boise State and Nevada. I guess once you've secured another 6 year term in the Senate, your sense of urgency on behalf of the people is minimized. Sharon Angle, at least wouldn't be setting the agenda for Upper House of Congress.

This is just an example of the fundamental problem with the leadership in Congress. A problem that is too abstract for the voters to actually be able to address. Only our elected officials can really fix it, yet they refuse to go against the power structure. Why is it that just because a member has been in Congress has been in office the longest (and perhaps has been corrupted the most) that he or she should have the most power. Cases in point - Speaker Pelosi, Leader Reid, Leader McConnell, Speaker-Elect Boehner, Hoyer, etc.

None of these people are hearing our voices. Pelosi is governing our country and setting the agenda as if the entire country has the demographics and ideology of San Francisco. As long as the House continues to elect her Speaker or Leader, there is no chance that this will ever change. It is nothing more or less than cowardice in the ranks of the Democratic House Members. The lone standout was the bravery of Congressman Schuler.

Another example is Steny Hoyer. Congressman Hoyer is completely out of touch and is now advocating to reduce the pay for our fighting men and women in the armed forces. He obviously can't tell the difference between overpaid federal bureaucrats and the brave men and women putting themselves in harms way. Dear Mr. Congressman - you can freeze federal employee pay raises without freezing the men and women's raises that are dying for us overseas. WAKE UP!

Mitch McConnell, Republican Minority Leader in the Senate, who is not able to articulate any argument and continues to give fodder to the far left by stating his only goal is to make sure that President Obama is defeated in 2012. Sounds like a partisan hack who is unable to work across the aisle for the American Peoples' goals. WAKE UP! Your number one goal is the economy and jobs! Did the election mean nothing to you, either?

What could have been a great start to a historic Congress is what we hoped it would not become - a quagmire led by incompetence on both sides of the aisle.

mR

Here's a 2 min clip of the 6 minute speech. At least with Sharon Angle, this could have been entertaining. Wake me up when this is over. On second thought, wake me up in 2012.

Photos courtesy of AP, Alex Brandon and Manuel Balce Ceneta

YouTube Video courtesy of Harry Reid, US Senator for Nevada

One Equals Two

Nancy Pelosi among other of our fearless members of Congress decided on a recent fact finding trip to play diplomat to Syria, even delivering a message to the Syrians from Israel. Simple enough. One would think. Last time I read the Constitution the Executive Branch of the federal government was responsible for diplomacy and foreign policy. We'll I've been wrong before. She was chastised by the president for going and then by the Israelis for screwing up the message. Come to find out, our foreign policy is not to negotiate with terrorists or terrorist nations. Hmmm--Hamas, Hezbollah, terrorists sponsored by Syria.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that a single trip by democrat and republican lawmakers, led by the Speaker of the House, totally tried to reverse U.S. foreign policy. But it's OK, the 911 Commission said so. Huh?

Cut to this week....

Secretary Rice this week went to Egypt to an Regional "help us fix Iraq" conference which included diplomats from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and other nations. In the process, Rice did take the time to discuss Iraq issues with her Syrian counterpart.

OH MY GOSH! Condoleeza did the same thing that Nancy Pelosi did! You could see the left wing pundits turning red with excitement! Some of them even blogged about it. Some of them even spewed that crap all over cable news! Damn her! See--Republicans are doing it too!

Wait a minute....

Did I miss something? Last time I checked it was the Executive Branch's prerogative to change it's foreign policy when things weren't working. Didn't the State Department say a few months back that if paths crossed, then the U.S. would discuss specific issues with these terrorist states? You would think the gotcha crowd on the left had just found Deep-Throat. The difference is this--Secretary Rice is the chief diplomat for the United States. The president can approve or deny any action that the Secretary is going to do in reference to U.S. foreign policy. That is his/her job. Last time I checked, madame speaker's job was to keep the House of Representatives in order and work on legislation--not conduct foreign policy.

Next time maybe the speaker will realize that diplomacy on the professional level is best left to the professionals. She taught the Syrians and any future terrorist nation (i.e. Iran) a very dangerous lesson.

The Lesson:

If you want to talk with an Senior U.S. official and they aren't paying attention to you, all you have to do is open your borders to terrorists so that they can get into a country involved in a conflict with the United States to fight and kill American soldiers. All you have to do is continue to hold out long enough and keep your agents fighting long enough, keep sponsoring suicide bombings long enough and the Speaker of the House--third in-line to the presidency-- will make a personal appointment, listen to what you have to say, take a few photos with you, and legitimates your cause to the world, giving hope and life to your effort.

What I don't understand is that some Democrats and some Republicans just seem to be purposefully undermining this country's effort to do something good in this world. They can only be doing it because they are 1) ignorant of what they are doing, or 2) purposefully undermining this effort. To do this at a time when our soldiers and marines are in harm's way is unfathomable to me. Congressmen and women are elected to represent the people of the United States in the United States. Their place in this is in approving and denying funding and in confirming or denying the Secretary of State and other Executive Officers that represent us overseas. That's it, nothing less, nothing more.

Madame Speaker, we are weaker today because of you.

A Letter to Our Civil Servants and Elected Officials

The legacy of our beloved former Secretary of Defense is back again. I sometimes wonder if our public servants get elected or appointed simply because they are incapable of doing anything else.

Case-in-point: Most media organizations reported recently on the inacuracies of the Pat Tillman and Jessican Lynch stories that were fed to the media during the early stages of the Iraq War. The ultimate authority in this case was ole Rummy. Why in the world did he allow the release of a story to the media that was completely flawed and untrue? Let me rephrase: Why did he allow the release of a story to the media which was almost certain to be disproved? Didn't he learn the lessons of the past decades? After all, he was in the Nixon Administration and I'm sure he read the papers during the Clinton Presidency. Public servants are hired or elected to do what is right. If they don't like it, they need to follow another line of work.

The refusal of people to change with the times just mesmerizes me. Rummy felt until the end that he was running a war from the 1970's. He still believed that if he didn't want the information to get out, he could stop it. He believed that people in general are stupid and will believe what their government tells them. How long will it take before our top civilian commanders realize that eventually most of the dirt and truth comes out? I don't get it.

For that reason (and others) I have started writing a letter to all of those who have been elected, appointed, or are planning such. This letter is written to all political persuasions. For we are pretty much sick of all of them. If you would like input, please post a comment. Here is what I have so far...

Dear Civil Servants and Elected Officials:

Gosh, how times have changed. They really haven't changed all that much, but we're giving you the benefit of the doubt. There are a few things that your loyal subjects want to remind you. First of all, we are not subjects, we are citizens. And unlike many of you, we have standards. Our standards are simple and are based on a few key underlying principles. Regardless of anything else, we want you to tell us the truth. We want you to uphold a common sense of humanity. We want to be able to trust you to make the decisions that need to be made, regardless of difficulty, for the betterment of society and our environment, both national and international. Below are a couple of suggestions that we make to help you do your job.

1. There is a media. The media is more driven, more savvy, more obnixious, and more corrupt that it has ever been before. The story is now more important than its readers and sometimes more important than the facts. If you know this, then you will know that anything you do is subject to the scrutiny of a competitor that is just as scrupulous as you are. You are held to a higher moral standard than anyone else. If you don't like this, then you might want to rethink your career path.

2. Tell the truth. Everything that you say will be twisted and turned around regardless of what it was that was originally said. But you will always be able to explain the truth--you will never be able to explain a lie.

3. Any lie that you tell, will be read back to you by a member of the oposition party, Chris Matthews, or worst case, Bill O'Reilly. If the truth is on your side, then you will survive.

4. Get a back-bone. Stand up for what you believe in. If you made a mistake, admit it and move on. The art of the cover-up is no longer available to you. Even non-coverups will be shown to look like cover-ups by media types who are opposed to you. (Questions about non-coverups? Ask Alberto Gonzalez and Scooter Libby.)

5. Don't do anything in your private life that you don't want the world to hold against you. If you don't want pictures of you with your intern splattered all over CNN, DON'T SLEEP WITH YOUR INTERN! If you get caught, take credit for it. Have a back-bone and don't lie about it. (See #1, 2, 3, & 4.) For questions on this one, I think you know who to contact. Hint: there isn't just one.

6. Appoint only people qualified for a job to that specific job. Don't appoint your boyfriend, girlfriend, lover, or best friend to a position unless they are the best qualified person for the job. Do not appoint a horse association president to the head of FEMA unless they have coordinated rescue and rebuilding efforts for 2 million horses and their homes in a hurricane. One last note: THEY HAVE TO HAVE DONE IT SUCCESSFULLY.

7. Only accept a job if you are qualified for it. If you don't know anything about Emergency Management, don't accept a political appointment as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And if you weren't successful in a previous war, don't try to regain your reputation by screwing up another one.

8. Don't argue for the sake of arguing. Do what is right, even if you don't believe everything you hear about it. For example: If helping the environment is good for the environment, then it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in global warming. If you believe that social security needs to be improved--improve it! No one cares if it will go bankrupt in 15 or 50 years.

9. Don't stop legislation that is good for the nation simply because your name will not be on it or the competitive party will get credit for it. The heirarchy of your allegiance should be as follows: Nation, State, Party, Self. Those of you doing it any other way are traitors to your nation. Do what is best for all of us, not what will give you or your party the most credit. At what point did leaking information that is vital or even just merely important to our nation's success become an innocent bi-product of leaking information to discredit a political opponent or the opposition party. Leaking information is leaking information. When the outcome of the information is more important the the potential consequences, then it is O.K. And you will hear our praise from your jail cell. Here is another example - don't screw your soldiers in battle just to win the next election!

10. Be the bigger person. During a time when it seems like a race to the bottom, it's important to remember what is important. The glee in the voice or the light in the eye of those taking delight in our nations' defeat for the sake of political victory or "I told you so" is sickening. You may think that you are hiding it, but you are not. (Mr Schumer - we can see the sparkle in your eye even when you are giving us one of your heart felt scowls.)

I am sure that you already know this, but I just wanted to spell it out. You are not respected by the world. You are seen as little kids fighting back and forth. Our political landscape is starting to look like the silly battles in the British Parlaiment that we used to see on Sunday night television. Once a respected institution, the international view of congress has moved from respectful disagreement to a complete loss of respect for our political process. You should all be ashamed.

Worse than this, you have lost respect from your nation. It is truly a sad day when this happens. You are now no better than other nations that once looked up to us. We are no longer a bright beacon, but an embarassment to the world community. Not because of the stands we take, or our mistakes in a war, but because of the serious and juvenile division that you have created--not just in congress, but in the media, in your news conferences, and in the rediculous diatribes that you use to further your party's agenda.

Now that we have come to the end of my rediculous diatribe, I have one more thought. At present, many Americans are not dissatisfied with their particular representative, just with every other member of congress. Well, the time is coming when a majority of voting Americans will be willing to sacrifice their sitting member of congress for the betterment of the whole. I'm ready now. Let's throw them all out and start over.

mr