There's a lot of absurdity circling around congressional Republicans' ongoing, pro-drilling stunt on Capitol Hill.
Yesterday, I noted that numerous GOP members from Illinois had joined the effort to bring Democrats back from August recess to vote on legislation to expand off-shore drilling. At his new blog Prairie State 2.0, Curt Mercadante responded by accusing the Democratic leadership of squelching "open government":
What the PI post avoids, of course, is the issue of open government and debate. [...]
It’s about the fact that they [the Democrats] tried to shut down debate in the U.S. House of Representatives.They turned off the microphones, shut off the lights, darkened the House video feed (and, thus, C-SPAN) … all to prevent the GOP debate from being heard.
It’s about open government. It’s about transparency.
When a chamber of Congress adjourns, as the House did on August 1, the microphones, lights, and cameras are turned off. It happened when Republicans were in power. It happens now that Democrats are in power.
This effort to cast the adjournment as some sort of devious, anti-democratic maneuver is a clever election year ploy -- and nothing more.
In fact, folks like Mercadante seem to have forgetten that in the months before Congress departed for their August recess, the Republicans repeatedly attempted to force the House to adjourn, as the Washington Post's Dana Milbank recently noted:
Eighteen times over the past 90 days, the minority tried, unsuccessfully, to force the House to adjourn. Now the House has finally adjourned -- for a five-week recess, no less -- and Republicans are demanding that the chamber be called back into session.
Of course, if those earlier demands for adjournment had been met, guess what would have happened? The lights and mics would have been turned off and the C-SPAN coverage would have ceased. Would Mercadante have raised a ruckus then?
His characterization of the pro-drilling efforts as a "grassroots movement" also deserves some attention:
So, kudos to Rep. Biggert - and the rest of our Illinois Congressional delegation who have spent time in DC to participate in the #dontgo movement.
In addition to demonstrating to the GOP base that its party still has some fight left in it … it really is demonstrating the power of social media to build grassroots movements.
Let's be clear. This is a "movement" that originated at the highest level of powers in Washington. It's a movement that, if successful, would benefit large oil companies and their rich executives far more than the average American consumer. It's a movement with protests populated by paid staffers from industry-funded organizations. In short, there is nothing "grassroots" about it.
on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 18:23
-This is a "movement" that originated at the highest level of powers in Washington.-
You obviously have no clue whatsoever about the movement you're writing about do you?
I'm going to point out the indisputable flaw in your post, and in doing so, I also want to point out the extremely poor job you did when "researching" for your little story.
My name is Eric Odom. I, along with good friend Allen Fuller, started the #dontgo Movement. Let me list some facts for you.
1) I'm a registered Libertarian here in Illinois.
How many times have the "powers in Washington" gone through a Libertarian who voted for Ron Paul and will be supporting Bob Barr to do their work for them?
*chirp, chirp*
2) I was never contacted by ANYONE in Washington about #dontgo
Yeah, that's right. Unlike you, who receives funding from big Government supporting unions to spout your nonsense, I don't accept money from anyone for my blogs or websites. Unless, of course, someone wants to buy an ad on a non-political site of mine, but that is rarely.
3) Big Oil bypassed me when writing the checks
Man, did I miss out or what??? Allen and I launched dontgo.us and dontgomovement.com on our own time and on our own dime, and now we find out that Big Oil and politicians are fueling the movement that we enabled? How did I miss that memo and where the hell is my cut?
4) You never contacted me about your accusation
Usually, when you accuse someone of something, you need to have some facts. If you don;t have facts, which you don't, then you need to have the accused individual's side of the story.
Even though dontgomovement.com has a nice and shiny button right up on top that says "CONTACT", you couldn't be bothered to actually contact me.
And if you had just used a nifty web tool called Google, you would have found a CNN, Redstate, TNR, Washington Examiner, and MANY other sources that plainly state the site is mine.
You could follow that up by using that cool web tool called Google and it would lead you to my blog. The blog on which I have a button right up top that tells you how to... get ready for it... CONTACT ME.
But instead, yuo spouted off an accusation that contains no truth and makes you look foolish.
Pat yourself on the back for this, "Progress Illinois"... you give Americans a website to be proud of.
Not.