Joe Barton’s Folly – Congress Has Nothing More Important to Do Than to Run College Football?
10th December 2009
Congressman Joe Barton (quasi-R – TX) apparently has so much time on his hands that he is teaming up with like-minded big-government nationalists to try to tell the American people and colleges around the nation how it must determine it’s college football national champion. Indeed, his bill has passed out of the House Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee – and Barton has had “good conversations” with those bastions of limited government, Henry Waxman and Barack Obama, about moving the bill forward.
Even Republicans (even Texas Republicans) get weird in Washington.
And we’re paying these people. Aren’t you proud?
And don’t get me started on Cornyn and Hutchison….
December 10th, 2009 at 13:30
When Joe Barton was a freshman congressman, another representative brought him to Houston and they both spoke at a PAC that Tenneco ‘voluntordered’ us to join. He looked to be 15 years old and was very anxious to establish himself as an active politician. So he made a long speech about how he was really pissing off the Dept. of Defense by telling them they couldn’t build 2 kinds of ships and had to pick just one. It was great to watch the big cheeses and the other Congressperson squirm; Tenneco owned Newport News Shipyard and was scheduled to build those ships. I’m sure there were more private meetings in which that all got straightened out.
The REALLY, REALLY sad part about all of this is that on the scale of congressional folly, this doesn’t even qualify as a mildly bad idea.
December 10th, 2009 at 13:35
There is a supposedly true story from the early days of Texas when a fellow from Europe was travelling through the region. A party was held in his honor and after dinner the men all sat down to cigars and whiskey (as was the custom). The name of a congressman came up and the locals had no end of stories about his philandering, lying, womanizing, etc. The visitor finally asked, “If this fellow is so bad, why did you send him to Washington?” The locals replied, “It was the only legal way to get him out of the county!”
This explains Congress.
December 10th, 2009 at 16:33
If you’re the sort of Texas who cares about such things you might criticize Barton for combining matters of church and state.
On the other hand, this is a relatively harmless thing for him to do, compared to most of his meddling.
December 14th, 2009 at 12:42
Joe Barton is far from the worst representative from Texas!!
We have Sheila Jackson Lee. She once asked NASA to retrieve the flag planted on Mars so she could display it in her office.
Once again, the REALLY, REALLY sad part is that Cong. Lee doesn’t even stand out as bad in Washington.