Wednesday, October 04, 2006

The People Who Rule Us

So Congress decides to kill Internet gambling because it's bad for us. And they know far better than we do what's in our best interest. We need to be watched over, don't you know.

There's a little scandal going on in DC that you might have heard about. A Republican congressman named Mark Foley resigned last Friday because it got out that he was (at the least) exchanging sexually-charged e-mails and instant messages with 16-year-old boys who work as House pages. Turns out that the Republican House leadership, including Dennis Hastert and John Boehner, knew about Foley's creepy, unethical and quite possibly illegal conduct...and did nothing about it. Buried it. Let this guy continue to have unfettered access to young kids.

During an interview on CNN today, anchor Miles O'Brien asked Ray LaHood, a Republican congressman from Illinois, about LaHood's call for the House Page program to be abolished. And here's what LaHood said:

LAHOOD: To send 15 and 16-year-old boys and girls to Washington, D.C., it's an antiquated system. And my idea is let's suspend it, send the pages home, and have some scholarly people in Washington really evaluate the program and bring it into the 21st century. It just -- it's a program that simply is flawed. It has its flaws. We should fix it. And then if it's a valuable program, perhaps bring it back.

O'BRIEN: Well, that's kind of a sorry state of affairs. In essence, what you're saying is that members of Congress can't be trusted to be around young people.

LAHOOD: Well, that's pretty obvious.

Try to wrap your mind around this. Members of the House of Representatives...can't be trusted to be around young people. And this is coming from a member of the House. THESE are the people who think they should protect us from ourselves.

Vote the bastards out.

posted by Gene @ 5:00 PM   |