Here’s a post by “HoHo Mustachio” over at LITW excoriating Rep Dennis Rehberg for missing three votes to tend to personal business. The margins for the votes in question: 360-26; 264-114; 379-0.
This is, to date, the dumbest post they have ever put up over there.
Here’s a little dose of realpolitik: Most votes in the House and senate are lopsided and foreordained. Members of either party are free to vote either way without affecting the outcome. They can thereby manufacture voting records to please their various constituencies.
I do remember one very important vote on an national forest issue that was up in the Senate some years back. I was still active in Montana Wilderness Association. It was very close, so close that the deciding vote would be cast by Sen Max Baucus, who was away on business. So they held the vote back until his return. John Gatchell of MWA was sure that Max would come down on the environmental side of the issue. I was equally sure that he would not. I do wish I could remember more than this.
Anyway, Max voted Nay, killed the bill, I was right, Gatchell wrong. Truth. And more than that, I imagine that Baucus was really pissed at being exposed like that. Normally he would have been able to cast a cosmetic “Yea” that did not affect the outcome of the bill.
I am sometimes amazed that the transparent theater of politics is not obvious to those who take a sincere interest in issues. HoHo Mustachio, I hope, learns something today. Just sayin’.
Piece of Mindful 