Taking a HARD look at the Business of Politics

Senator Arlen Specter visited our area on Thursday morning. He was welcomed by sign wielding Peace Marchers upon his entry into the Community Center in Forks Township, PA outside of Easton. The turnout, for a weekday summer morning when many people were either working or off on vacation, was surprisingly good, with a few hundred people filling the gym.

After having a few days to think about the meeting, what was said, what wasn’t said, and what was dodged around, I’ve come to realize that very little of substance was actually said by Senator Specter.

Every time someone got indignant or feisty, Specter would crack a joke. He was actually quite good at that, though a couple of the jokes that were cracked in response, put some of that egg back on his face.

His way of dealing with the Elephant In The Room, which was the issue of the War with Iraq, was to state that in September the effectiveness of “the surge” would be evaluated, and if progress wasn’t being made, then Congress should tighten the purse strings. Period. And when it was brought up again and again he wrapped himself in the Constitution. The Elephant’s Mate, Impeachment, was dealt with through a definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, which brought a chorus of boos and hisses from the audience. If Specter was there to “take our temperature” well, I think he now realizes it’s at the boiling point on these issues. And that was, in fact, one of his jokes, when one of the local Peace Movement women questioned him on the issue, pointing out to him that there was never any evidence of WMD, and that the UN had asked for more time to evaluate that, which Bush ignored, pushing us into war. This was the one joke of Specter’s that ended up majorly backfiring, since she fired back a joke about honest politicians that got a much bigger response than his did.

I was one of the questioners in this Political Farce. My question? Net Neutrality. I asked Senator Specter where he stood on Net Neutrality. And his answer came right out of the Telecomm Sock Puppet script. It went something like this– “The lady asked the question about Network Neutrality, which is who is going to pay for maintaining and building the internet. We’re studying that issue closely, and we’ll decide whether it will be the companies that supply the service or Google.” Notice how he reframed my question to be a question of money, which it wasn’t. My response to him was that he please pay attention to the work Senator Durbin is doing on this issue since it might show him some home truths about that. I was pleased to see a not quite concealed flash of surprise on his face when I mentioned Senator Durbin’s work on Telecomm Policy Reform. He answered me that yes, Senator Durbin is on the committee with him that is looking into this issue (which, of course, I knew.) The aides then took my little slip of paper with my info and my issue on it. Why do I feel that the pieces of paper were part of the smoke and mirrors dog and pony show, and that trees were killed for no good reason?

This whole show was scripted from beginning to end. No doubt about that. And the people I spoke to around me also felt they’d been manipulated in some way. That came through to me loud and clear. I hope that Specter gets the message.

Since we only got to ask one question I couldn’t ask about Media Reform. No one else did. It’s gotta make me wonder if there isn’t more we can do to get the word out and make sure these issues are covered at these sorts of meetings with local Politicians.

Some of the other issues asked about? The Oil in Iraq (from an Iraqi Exchange Student. Wow.) Health Care Reform was a biggie, the Environment as it pertains to local issues such as the Dump in Pen Argyl, Veterans’ issues, Immigration (and from three sides of it! Illegal, Legal, and Born Citizen!), Abortion, Education, and The Farm Bill and Small Farmer issues (yay!) I’m sure there are a few I missed.

There was one notable moment of levity when a woman, in one sentence, begged Senator Specter to give us all relief from high gas taxes, and to make our bridges safer. It was one of the few times Specter didn’t have a joke ready.

The event was covered by Penn Cable.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I do know that I came away very dissatisfied. The feeling I got, and not just in my case, was that, other than a few individual “let’s see if we can cut some red tape for you” answers to specific problems such as green card issues and veteran’s admin issues, nothing was truly dealt with. No one got a real answer from Senator Arlen Specter, even if he was entertaining.

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BitchSlapped on 08/12/07, 9:40 AM
Politics As Usual, Various Senators BitchSlapped, and
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