(Fred Weinberg) – I spent 17 years of my life in the great state of Oklahoma.
They had two phrases for a prototypical politician.
The first was that he “goes along to get along”.
The second was that he “wouldn’t say sh-t if he has a mouthful”.
Those two phrases describe John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and virtually all of the Republican leadership perfectly.
Ironically, when those two phrases came about in Oklahoma, they used to spray for Republicans. They referred, for the most part, to Democrats. When Republicans finally did ascend to leadership positions they became Democrat-Lite with a number of notable exceptions.
One of those exceptions is now that state’s senior Senator, James Mountain Inhofe.
Twenty-nine years ago, in a few months, Jim was first elected to Congress and was in Washington for a freshman orientation. I was in Tulsa when I got a call at 5:30 in the morning one day and Jim was on the other end.
“I just found something out,” he said with a fair degree of excitement. “These people only work from Tuesday to Thursday.”
What, I asked, do they do with the rest of the time?
“I don’t know,” he answered. “But they say it’s pretty nice here. But listen, I have a plane (he has been a pilot for years) and I can get back to the district. I can out-work them.”
And, so he has.
Boehner, on the other hand, worked from Tuesday to Thursday, went along to get along, ascended to the House leadership and had a full-time diet of sh-t which he willingly ate.
How did that work out for him?
Well, the real question is how did that work out for us?
The problem with most professional politicians is that they are professional politicians. They have no allegiance to the people who put them in office. We just don’t understand, they say. Governing is hard…
That’s a bunch of crap.
Finding people with common sense is hard. When you find them, governing is easy.
The truth is that whatever job they currently hold is probably the best job they ever had or could ever get. They get paid really well—after all they vote on their own compensation. They have tremendous retirement plans and health benefits. They vote on that, too.
And most people kiss their rings.
There’s no intelligence test to pass, there is no rule they can’t break and get away with breaking and the American public is so pissed off that it is likely a complete outsider will get the Republican nomination for President.
As well they should be.
And the real problem is that politics is no longer an honorable profession. It’s just a business which people who can’t do much of anything else go into when they discover they can’t do much of anything else.
The Jim Inhofes, Tom Coburns, and very few others can’t get much done because they are carrying the McConnels and Boehners on their backs.
And the only way this ends is to throw the bums out, as many as possible all at once.
Mr. Weinberg is publisher of the Penny Press. Get to know more about him by visiting www.PennyPressNV.com.
