At first blush, notable weeper and doggoner, the extinguished Speaker of the House, by handing our Committee Chairs to his Redrublican cronies appears to have missed the clear sentiments of the American electorate. His zero diversity approach screams that the party he leads just doesn't get it. Social media is positively humming with outrage over this tone-deaf dissing.
While I'm sure there was some worry during the selection process about the message this move would send to women and minorities. It doesn't look good. It doesn't sound good. It feeds the "out of touch" anachronism stigma that dogs his party's image.
~BUT~! Look a little bit closer...
You're the Speaker. You must decide who gets what committee assignment. You scan your roster. There's no Judy Biggert, there's no Mary Bono Mack, there's no Alan West, there is ONLY MICHELLE BACHMANN! "Put me in coach! I'm ready to PLAY!"
The Congresscritter from Benton, Sherburne, Stearns, Wright, Anoka, and Washington counties, whose astute residents re-elected a proven loonie because the alternative returned her to live among them, is next in line and, indisputably, craven for power.
What would you do? Seriously.
The immediate roar and subsequent fallout from the Speaker's White Boys' Club lineup will flare very briefly, then vanish until next year's election cycle, when Bohner, as HMFIC of the Reproblican Controlled House of Representatives can legitimately plead for something other than third-rate nutjobs, head-cases, replicants and pseudo-humanoid tea party time-bombs.
If it seems like the POG isn't giving the fiscal cliff or the peoples' business due deference and diligence, just imagine being in that caucus. Locked in a room full of borderline personality disorders, full-blown delusionals, fringe sociopaths, pit-bulls, bullies and the popular middle-school cliquers.
To be fair, the vast majority of Congresscritters are removed from the local community to D.C. for purely survival motives. After years of pecksniffing, noise-making and riling up the rabble, removing them to distance lends local serenity. Changing their status from resident to visitor, showing them the bright lights/big city, seeing them only during election season, but otherwise not having to do more than occasionally apologize for their latest temper tantrum, unethical behavior or sex scandal is a price most districts willingly pay.
In essence, every election is an opportunity for the population of each Congressional district to vote one person out of town and off their island. When you view the assembly on Capital Hill and note its eerie, spooky, kooky quirks and collective character flaws, applying this filter puts them in a whole new light.
They get to think themselves important and some of them can surprise the folks back home, but, in general, they're turned into somebody else's trouble. Tossed into the arena to eat or be eaten. Surrounded by guards, cameras and security checkpoints. Subject to a paparazzi press corps, and kept busy, busy, busy doing important work.
The output of which, although predictably nasty, inbred and ineffective, can be wholly ignored by just about everyone in their daily travels...
We can argue and haggle over the price tag, but not the efficiency.
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