No NIMBY For Me! I Hate, Detest, Loathe My Senator

[Annie]

http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2006/05/real-purpose-of-congressional-hearings.html

Sunday, May 28, 2006

The Real Purpose of Congressional Hearings

Senator Dick Durbin inadvertently reveals the real purpose of holding oversight hearings. The Senatorial Judiciary Committee is considering calling in phone executives to ask them about the story about their giving phone records to the NSA. Senator Kyl, my favorite senator, doesn't see the point. If they do bring them in, Kyl, Orrin Hatch, and Diane Feinstein want to question them in closed door session. You know, because it concerns national security and all that important stuff that senators are supposed to care about.

But not the famed Nazi-hunter, Dick Durbin.

Kyl and Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the executives should be questioned in a closed session to protect the effectiveness of the NSA surveillance ordered by President Bush to detect terrorist plots after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) questioned the value of a closed session if members could not publicly discuss what the executives told the committee. "What's the point?" he asked.

Let us translate Durbinese: "If we can't make a big political deal out of these hearings and slam the Bush administration and the NSA, what's the point?"

This is just so priceless. If he were interested in finding out more about the program and if it were accomplishing its goals and if it were violating rights, he'd be happy with a closed-door session. But that is not his goal at all. Pure politics is his goal and so he must not be bound by any sticky little oath of silence that a closed-door session implies.

 

[musicman]

TOO good! He convicts himself out of his own mouth; his behavior is the smoking gun!

Neither of my senators is worth a rat's ass, either (DeWine and Voinovich - both Republicans).

 

[Annie]

TOO good! He convicts himself out of his own mouth; his behavior is the smoking gun!

Neither of my senators is worth a rat's ass, either (DeWine and Voinovich - both Republicans).

Durbin is garbage. Obama, well the court is out, though I fear the onslaught:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/servi...ay/metro/chi-0605310021may31,1,5046730.column

Better '08 than never? Obama has to choose


Published May 31, 2006

"In the world's greatest deliberative body, no one is listening" --Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), in his upcoming book, "The Audacity of Hope."

Obama may or may not like it. He may or may not be prepared for it. He may or may not even realize it. But now is his moment.

If he's ever going to run for president, 2008 is his year.

I explained the major reasons why a year and a half ago in this space--they include a weak field of Democratic contenders led by the polarizing Sen. Hillary Clinton, the opportunity to run against a non-incumbent Republican, the muddying effect that years in the U.S. Senate have on politicians and the likelihood that, by the next cycle, someone else will be the darling of celebrities and pundits.

Some accused me at the time and will accuse me today of being unduly and uncritically dazzled by Obama; of cheering him on from the sidelines. But that isn't it.

I'm aware of his shortcomings--his minimal foreign policy experience, his lack of any major accomplishments on the national stage, his apparent unwillingness to spend political capital on unpopular positions.

Yet I'm also aware that swollen resumes aren't everything in presidential races. An appealing personality, an optimistic vision and the aura of leadership are a lot more important to voters choosing a president than long years in the legislative trenches or endless lists of programs initiated (or eliminated) at a governor's desk.

Plans and philosophies are important, sure. But everyone in the game has a surplus of those.

I'm also aware that every year Obama spends as a Democrat in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate is another year he won't get much done.

It's another year in which he'll cast votes that foes will later use to define him as a hypocrite, stooge or radical.

It's another year in which he stands to alienate his core supporters with clumsy political moves such as turning his back on former close ally Forrest Claypool in the Democratic primary for the presidency of the Cook County Board, playing both sides of the gay marriage issue while more courageous Democrats in the Senate come out in support, and endorsing the lightweight, ethically obtuse Alexi Giannoulias in the Democratic primary for state treasurer as apparent payback for Giannoulias' earlier financial help.

In short, it's another year for the development of a public opinion "Barack-lash," as bloggers call the inevitable erosion of Obama's image.

And what does he have to lose, anyway? If the quote from his new book at the top of this column is any indication, he's bored and disillusioned by the Senate anyway.

Momentum is with him. Jeff Zeleny's Page 1 story in Sunday's Tribune--"Obama in '08?"--was just the latest in a series of splashes after Chicago magazine put "2008?" across a photo of Obama on its March cover. Celebs George Clooney, Neil Young and Halle Berry gave him the nod, and a huge crowd in the Chicago Theatre cheered wildly when Conan O'Brien asked Obama about a presidential bid.

At a news conference Sunday, Dick Durbin, Illinois' senior senator, reiterated the hope he expressed in the Tribune story that Obama "seriously consider" a White House bid.

That same day, Time magazine reported that the revitalized Al Gore--an emerging favorite of the "anybody but Hillary" Democrats--was firmly ruling out another run.

In contrast, Obama's formerly firm denials have evolved into jocular demurrals and artful deflections.

"I was thinking about you as my running mate," he told O'Brien. "I'm focusing on my job as a senator from Illinois," he told Zeleny.

This sort of momentum, these sorts of attentions, don't last forever. Suitors, once rebuffed, are likely to ask someone else to the next dance.

In an off-the-record conversation, a close observer of All Things Obama passed along a political adage that seems likely either to inspire or haunt our junior senator in the coming months: "You don't always get to choose your time," he said. "Every so often, the times choose you."