Do Not Ask What Good We Do

If you've paid attention to any political news the last two years, you know that Congress hasn't accomplished much lately. I just finished a book on this very subject- Do Not Ask What Good We Do by Robert Draper. I learned more than I needed to know about the ineffectiveness of the 2010-2012 U.S. House of Representatives. Read ahead at the risk of getting angry.

"What made 2010 different was a rising tide of economic distress, coupled with the growing belief that the Democrats were only making things worse. Unlike many of the other Blue Dogs, Giffords had voted for the complete unholy trinity: stimulus, cap-and-trade, and health care. The latter vote set off an ugly conflagration of attacks- the very least of which were snarky ads featuring a Pelosi double instructing a Giffords stand-in who would bleat, "Whatever you say, mama Nancy." More ominously, an anonymous assailant blew out the windows on her district office. Sarah Palin's PAC website showed a map of congressional districts with crosshairs covering twenty of them, representing Democrats who had voted for health care. Arizona's 8th district was one of them. Giffords went on MSNBC to warn Palin that "there's consequences to that action." (36)

-I remember hearing about this after Giffords was shot. It made me so upset. Knowing more about the situation just makes it worse.

"Obama had made a strategic mistake, McCarthy thought, picking a fight with Paul Ryan (on the budget). "I think Ryan's in his head," he would say. "Think about it. Ryan's a young guy. Ryan's risen fast. Ryan's got a great family. Ryan's got a lot of comparisons to the rise of where the president is. It's not so smart to raise him up by picking him as an enemy."" (143)

-Ryan is featured quite a bit in thie book. It was interesting to read about him now that he's Romney's VP pick.

"And she (Pelosi) had resisted the temptation to say "I told you so" to Obama- who, back in December, had disagreed with the Speaker's belief that they should raise the debt ceiling during that lame-duck session. The president's belief had been that the Republicans would and should be equal partners in the debt ceiling discussion- implying, she thought, that he believed the Republicans would treat the matter in a reasonable fashion." (259)

-This totally makes sense to me. Whenever Republicans tell me how radical they think Obama is, I just have to laugh inside because I really believe he was trying to be centrist and work with the Republicans as much as he could.

"In short, whatever pressures to govern the freshmen faced were drowned out by pressures from the right. On top of that, their reelection fortunes depended on money from conservative donors. Blake Farenthold had raised a meager $102,000 during the third quarter of 2011. Farenthold couldn't stand asking people for money and was troubled by a system that dictated raising and spending a million dollars every two years so as to keep one's seat." (271)

-A million dollars every Congressional campaign. Infuriating. We need campaign finance reform yesterday.

"The Florida freshmen (West) wasn't quite sure what vision was being articulated on November 1, when the Republican leadership brought to the floor House Concurrent Resolution 13, which reaffirmed "In God We Trust" as the official motto of the United States. "There are few things Congress could do that would be more important than passing this resolution," cosponsor Lamar Smith intoned." (272-273)

-Seriously?! The guy seriously believes this was one of the bets things Congress could have been doing? Aargh!