This clown is a rookie who will be out of there soon.
Again, Landry's time on Capitol Hill isn't likely to last past January 2013. Louisiana is losing a congressional seat, and in January, the state's other five House Republicans and Cedric Richmond, the only House Democrat,
reportedly met over Chinese food and voted Landry off the island. Their plan, which the Louisiana Legislature later approved, sliced up Landry's district into three parts, leaving him a district that heavily favors the re-election of Rep. Charles Boustany.
You'd think that if Landry were making a list of people he doesn't want to meet with, his fellow Louisiana Republicans would come first. But more than that, you'd think that a lawmaker looking to accomplish things in Washington would know not to let ideological differences become personal. Actual friendships have been known to develop between Republicans and Democrats, and sometimes politicians from the two sides actually work together. It's why they're there, really: to work with the other side to get things done.
Antagonizing the president won't help him accomplish anything. That's bad news for his constituents; for not only is Landry's district doomed by redistricting, parts of it are being washed away by the Gulf of Mexico. Effective coastal restoration is going to require a commitment from the White House. It's the White House Landry chose to offend this week.
Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was not amused by Landry's self-publicized snub.
"It is more than a little arrogant," Ornstein said. "It belittles the office of the presidency and shows that Landry has little understanding of the political process, the role of the constitutional institutions, much less basic politeness."
Rep. Steve Scalise only has two years seniority on Landry. Scalise is reliably conservative. Still, the second-term congressman went to Wednesday's meeting, lobbied the president to speed up certain permits for offshore oil and gas exploration and said later that the president pledged to work with him on it.
That's how Washington works.