BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
AUGUST RECESS HYPOCRISY
I would guess that most current and former Hill employees get really rankled every August when well-tanned and rested television anchors like Bill Hemmer of Fox News (it is really hard to take that guy seriously), get indignant over Congress leaving Washington for August recess. Hemmer is not alone, of course. August recess wisecracking is a popular sport.
Fox, however, has lowered the bar even more. It just spent a lot of money conducting survey research, which Hemmer reported on August 8. Breaking news, breaking news, stop the presses: “A new Fox news national poll has found that 82 percent of voters think Congress hasn’t worked hard enough to go on vacation for five weeks.”
Hemmer looks like he’s 12, but I wonder why he acts like it?
As Hemmer should know, Members of Congress don’t take a 5-week vacation. He’s either ignorant or deliberately playing so fast and loose with the facts, he should be given five or six of the Washington Post’s Pinocchios.
As those who work or worked on the Hill do know, most members of Congress take little vacation. They go back to their states and districts and work their asses off for most or all of the break from congressional sessions in Washington. They visit nursing homes, fire stations, union halls, and the VFW. They host town hall meetings, give speeches, walk the streets, stop at grain mills, and appliance factories. They attend church picnics, county fairs, grand openings, and Rotary clubs and most of all hold meetings with constituents, all kinds of them on all different issues in all different settings. And, of course, they talk to the local press. They do news conferences, interviews, editorial boards, and photo ops. Vacation? The press is no vacation.
While the late David Broder walked the walk and Richard Fenno wrote a book about congressmen pounding their home turf, most of the national journalistic elite don’t ever wander away from the news desks in New York and Washington long enough to know what politicians really do for a living over congressional recesses. Trudging through a cornfield north of Peoria, they could, God forbid, break a nail, get dust on their loafers, or miss cocktails at the Ritz.
The penchant of the press to pick on politicians in August is widespread and old hat, and consistent with their role as agitator, exaggerator, and exasperator.
It’s no big deal. But, ya know, it just makes matters worse, giving the public another bogus reason to be angry at their public servants when they have plenty of legitimate reasons to be. It makes life, politics, and governance all that more difficult.
I’m curious about two things. One, who were the 18 percent who said they didn’t mind if congressmen took the month off; and two, I wonder where Hemmer is going on vacation this year to top off his tan.
THE QUALITY OF OUR CANDIDATES
Candidates for office are coming out of the woodwork and off the wall as we get closer to another sad and silly election cycle, but three candidates are really crowding out credulity.
Former New York Attorney General and Governor Eliot Spitzer who frequented prostitutes while he was governor is making a comeback as candidate for New York Comptroller, the person who handles the taxpayers’ money. Former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who exposed himself on the Internet, is also in comeback form running for New York City Mayor. San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is in office trying to stay there after being accused—the count is up to 13–of sexual harassment.
I’m reminded of the great story the late Mo Udall used to tell about his campaign for President. He said he walked into a barber shop in a small Western town and announced to the barbers and the patrons that he was Mo Udall and he was running for President. One of the barbers said, “yeah, we were just laughing about that.”
In the case of Spitzer and Weiner the joke is on New York. What a town, eh? Most everyone in life deserves a second chance, and sometimes a third. They do, too. But they ought to get their second chance in some other line of work besides governing. Neither of them was good at it the first time around (especially Spitzer); they violated their public trust and they’ve exhibited character flaws that are just completely incompatible with public service.
They both would probably do well in a new reality television show, something like the Husbands of Manhattan. Filner should just resign. The public can do better. You just wonder, from one election to another, why they don’t.
Maybe part of the problem is that good people don’t run and enough people don’t vote.
ESSENTIAL GOVERNMENT
In earlier ramblings about duck genitalia, we concluded that Federal appropriators really need to focus themselves and the government more on what is essential government spending, working their way out from the core of government’s responsibilities and top priorities. That, we concluded, would probably not include scientific research on duck genitalia.
Essential government planning would probably also eliminate Federal subsidies for the District of Columbia’s plan to spend $140 million on a new soccer stadium and Arlington County’s plan to run a street car down Columbia Pike. It would also argue strongly against $32 billion in Medicaid service delivery experiments, and the $70 million the Administration lost betting on a Colorado solar company now in bankruptcy. It would also argue against spending billions lassoing asteroids and planting false memory in mice.
You can read about projects and schemes like these every day. Some are ludicrous. Some are criminal. Some have potential. Some are worthwhile. Some could even be considered important.
But most, in an age of fiscal crises, which our policy makers can’t seem to solve, are hardly essential. And when we’re in a situation where our problem solvers can’t seem to solve problems, it’s always best not to create more problems.
KERRY AND HIS BOAT BIG NEWS
I would nominate a CBS This Morning producer for a daytime Emmy or maybe a Cronkite award. He/she deserves it for an in-depth investigation into Secretary of State John Kerry.
The CBS sleuth, a Morning Show producer, was keeping an eye on Secretary Kerry’s yacht, the Isabel, over the 4th of July and discovered that he was actually on it. The producer took a picture of him on the boat, so it became a big deal when the State Department said he wasn’t on the boat, when he was on the boat. This was even more newsworthy because he was on the boat when the Egyptian Army overthrew President Mohamed Morsi.
I guess no one in Egypt called Kerry and told him to get off the boat, pack up his personage and head back to Washington or somewhere else where he could appear more secretarial and more alert about foreign matters.
Why does the media think that whenever a momentous incident occurs, American politicians have to say something profound, do something newsworthy, or be someplace commensurate with the gravity of the situation? Kerry can afford a yacht and I assume the State Department gave him a cell phone so the fact that he was actually on the boat over a holiday should not be news. He probably thinks better there than in Foggy Bottom, anyway.
I did take a look at the picture of Kerry at the helm. He should buy a new bathing suit.
Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.