Schmuckery and et al...

Jack Kingston was on The Colbert Report last night, with Mr. Colbert interviewing him about the Democratic expansion of the Congressional workweek to 5 days.

When I find video for this, I would like you to share in the revelry of the stiff-as-a-board man who represents the Savannah, Georgia, area in Congress. To provide a degree of perspective: Colbert is dynamic, very dynamic; Jack Kingston is about as inert and humorless as they come.

Did you know Congressional members already work 50-60 hours per week? Wow. I shrink back to think what Jack Kingston would have done had he worked the job I had this summer.

He probably would have imploded.

And the world would be a safer place.

-rsl

PS: The Dems are out to destroy Christmas.

Bunderschaft, you going daft?

Well, the Bunderschaft isn't going daft, but the voters of Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District apparently are. Representative William Jefferson was re-elected to Congress in a runoff election in which he defeated his opponent, Louisiana State Representative from the 93rd District, Karen Carter, by a 57-43 margin.

For those of you who don't remember, William Jefferson was caught by FBI agents with $90,000 in his apartment freezer. So what? FBI agents go in and raid Bill Jefferson's office and apartment. Big deal? Not so fast...

Members of both parties raised a fuss when the wall between the legislature and executive was breached, and for good reason. The Constitution calls for 3 co-equal (though some Republicans and Conservatives - I'm looking at you, Mike Dovilla - would like to disagree) branches of government, as we do with the executive, legislature, and judicial. Should any one branch begin infringing upon another's independence through force, it will further knock the balance out of the tripartite center. With the country already being led by a strong executive, one has to wonder what the asserting power over the Congress will do in the long term.

That said, I could be totally offbase... I don't claim to be a Constitutional scholar, much as I aspire to be one.

Meh. All the same, they've lost it in LA-2.

-rsl

30% - That's like 90% given amongst three people?

Zogby's numbers on President Bush's approval rating are out... and I gotta say it, 90% isn't bad. But I cannot lie! That's only what it could be if the US were run by a triumvirate of Bushes and we combined approval ratings.

President Bush has lost support all across the board:

Support for the President waned in key demographic groups, the Zogby poll shows. Among all Republicans, just 60% gave him a positive job rating, while 39% gave him negative marks. Just 9% of Democrats and 22% of political independents gave him good marks for his work. Among married respondents – typically a group who favors Republicans – just 35% said Bush was doing a positive job. Among men, another favorable GOP demographic, just 31% gave him positive marks, while 69% gave him a negative rating. Even among stalwart Born Again respondents, just 43% had positive ratings for the President on his overall job performance.

I remember hearing an expression at one point that went to the effect of "you know you're doing a good job when you're pissing people off." Somehow I don't think this is what the expression's originator(s) had in mind.

I find that it's mind-blowing that at one point in this guy's presidency he actually did have a 90% approval rating. The foolish decisions that have been made in the interim have not only hurt us, George, it looks like they've also hurt you.

And maybe you'll have learned, but I doubt it. And maybe we'll have learned...

-rsl

Cleveland.com Blog of the Week... apparently.

Ahem. Thank you.

I guess.

I received an IM from James earlier today that I was selected as Cleveland.com's political blog of the week.

Interesting.

See here. (It's towards the bottom of the page.)

I'm not sure whether to be flattered, shocked or amused. Quite frankly, all three emotions pervade me. Given the recent lack of posting anything of meaning, I'm not sure what to make of it.

By the way: apparently Harry Frankfurt has a new book out, On Truth, to accompany On Bullshit. It's news to me! Thus, I will be holding off on the Truth v. Lie v. Fudging v. Bullshitting entry until I read On Truth.

Maybe more later. I dunno. Depends if I crash after work tonight.

-rsl.

O RLY?

This from Political Wire:

"Keeping us up here eats away at families…The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says."

-- Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), quoted by the Washington Post, in response to incoming-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) plan to increase the House’s work schedule from three days a week to five.

Obviously this guy doesn't know Jack about work. But what can I say about that, he is a Republican in Washington. God forbid that legislators actually spend more time doing their jobs in discrete blocks of time, potentially freeing up longer blocks of time for legislators to be chatting up their pages via IM. Oops... sorry... that is... "spending time with their family."

For all the pissing and moaning that Congressional Republicans have done over the last six years on Democrats not being willing to do anything, this entire notion of Democrats proposing a longer Congressional workweek may seem... directly against the Republican "principles" of smaller and lazier government.

What the hell, y'know.