Politicians Say The Darndest Things. Unfortunately.

I recently came across a reference to an old television show from the fifties which was called "Art Linkletter's House Party." A favorite segment on every episode of the show was called "Kids Say The Darndest Things." Mr. Linkletter would ask questions of some children, usually aged between three and eight, and some of their responses were hilarious. This segment was spun off later into a show unto itself and was hosted by Bill Cosby.

This recollection reminds me of our present day politicians and how they also say the darndest things. Unfortunately, they are not as cute, cuddly, or funny as the kids that Linkletter and Cosby elicited answers from. In fact, they are down right depressing to think that these people are actually in control of the country and our lives and there is nothing funny about what they sometimes say:

Darndest Thing Said: A New York Times article from July 21, 2010 was about President Obama's signing of a sweeping expansion of Federal oversight and regulation of the financial services industry. Regarding the signing of the bill, the President said: "If you've ever applied for a credit card, a student loan, or a mortgage, you know the feeling of signing your name to pages of barely understandable fine print."
Commentary: Let's see, you are signing a document that will affect just about every American business and household and to you it's "barely understandable fine print." If the President does not understand what is in the bill, how does he know it is good bill, as he has touted it?  If the government that wrote bill does not understand what is in it, how does it expect regular Americans, most of whom are non-lawyers, to understand it and abide by it? Not only that, I would bet that the fine print the President complains about regarding loans, credit cards and mortgages are that way because some government or political class entity passed a law or rule mandating the barely understandable details.

Darndest Thing Said: Regarding the need to pass Obama's health care reform law, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find find what is in it, away from the fog of controversy."
Commentary: Let's see, much like the financial reform bill with its "barely understandable fine print," we have to pass Obama Care to find out what is in it? This is like saying lets drive along a foggy and icy mountain road at night to see where the road is. At some point, we are going to drive off the mountain. How bad of a bill is it when the Speaker of the House has no clue what is in it and what the likely ramifications are and will not know until the bill is live?

Darndest Thing Said: Not to be outdone by Pelosi, this is how Congressman Henry Waxman, a sponsor of the bill in question, reacted when asked what was in his proposed Cap And Trade Energy Bill: "I certainly don't claim to know everything that is in this bill... I don't know the details."
Commentary: Congressman, if you helped write the bill and are a sponsor of the bill but you do not know what is in the bill, how do you know it is a good bill? How do you know whether it will work and what the ramifications are going to be if you do not know all that is in the bill? Seems like you are on the same foggy and icy mountain road that Pelosi is on.

Darndest Thing Said: Pelosi, Part 2. When asked what good it would be to extend unemployment benefits, the Speaker responded: "It [unemployment benefits] creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name."
Commentary: In Ms Pelosi's world, the more people that are unemployed, the more jobs there are. Thus, if we fired everyone, there would be jobs for everyone. If we had more people unemployed, there would be more unemployment benefits and more jobs created. How did she not get the Noble Prize for economics that was given out today!!! Brilliant!

Darndest Thing Said: Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson speaking on the record at a Congressional hearing on our armed forces deployment on the island of Guam: "My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.
Commentary: as with the above quotes, this one can be seen on YouTube. It is pretty apparent that he is serious when he offers this assessment, despite a press release later that he was kidding, there is no indication at the time he said this darndest thing that he was not serious. The bigger problem is not Guam, the Congressman should be more worried about Manhattan and Staten Island tipping over since they have many more people and cars and other things that could make those islands even more likely to tip over.

Darndest Thing Said: I could not find the exact quote that New Jersey Frank Lautenberg said regarding the decision of New Jersey Chris Christie to stop the construction of a new tunnel from New Jersey into New York City. Christie's logic for stopping the construction is runaway costs, costs that he did not want to stick to the New Jersey and U.S. taxpayer at this time of such a weak economy. The cost of the tunnel was originally estimated at $5 billion in 2005, the Federal government recently upped the estimate to $9-10 billion and Christie's analysts said the cost could already by between $11 and $14 billion. The project is starting to sound like the Boston Big Dig fiasco and Christie is putting a stop to it. To which Lautenberg said that cost overruns are inevitable on a project this big, according to the Associated Press.
Commentary: My question to Mr. Lautenberg then is why even estimate what the cost will be to begin with if cost overruns are inevitable? I guess we should just write out a blank check as taxpayers and let the politicians spend as much money as they want. Christie, at least, is one politicians with a enough guts to stand up against this type of government waste and stop the expenditure until there are proper cost and audit controls in place with the appropriate penalties for non-performance. Lautenberg would just write another taxpayer check.

Yes, politicians do say the darndest things but they are not as funny as a five year old. Our current crop of politicians would pass bills that they do not understand, they do not know what is actually in the bill, and do not know what the ramifications will be when the bill is implemented. Our politicians would rather just do things and not worry about the costs since they can always hit up the taxpayer later. And our politicians also worry about the darndest things including capsizing islands. [Note: I excluded Joe Biden quotes in the interest of space and time.]

Now, I am sure my Democratic friends will chastise me for only citing idiotic things said by Democrats. I am sure they will point out similar quotes that Sarah Palin, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and other Republicans have said in the past. But that is the exact reason I did not include them. Both parties are full of incompetence and politicians like the ones cited above. It does not make any difference which ones are elected and in power, the current political processes in this country get us bad, wasteful and dangerous legislation regardless of who is in charge.

What we do as citizens is argue amongst ourselves over who has the dumbest politicians, the Democrats or Republicans while the same tired and dangerous politicians, from both parties, are continually re-elected.  We are satisfied that our party's politicians got elected because we think they are less dumb than the other party's politicians. Dumb is dumb, it does not matter how we label them from a political party perspective. Regardless of who is elected as a result of our political processes, none of them have solved the pressing issues of our time including failing public schools, war on drugs, lack of a national energy policy, the illegal immigration problem and out of control spending and waste.

The obvious, but difficult solution is to change our political processes so that we to not have to choose between dumb and dumber but between candidates that are smart enough to read a bill, understand its ramifications, and vote it up or down accordingly.  Several steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would be a good start:

• Step 14 - stop gerrymandering congressional districts to almost guarantee the re-election of incumbents.
• Step 39  - is a longer term follow up to Step 14 in that it would impose term limits on all Federal government politicians in order to continually get a focused and fresh look at the problems facing America.
• Step 36 - would require all politicians to take and pass a course on economic principles and theory in order for them to at least know when a bill will have dire economic consequences, even if they ignore the consequences.
• Step 38 - would require all members of the Federal political class to sign a shared values statement where they pledge to do what is right for the country and not themselves or their party. Components of such a statement would include the principles of respect, integrity, trust and commitment.

Not included in the above list is the most important step of all and that is the need for all voters to stop accepting the performance and laughable quotes highlighted above and start demanding real change and real action on the major issues facing the country. We need to elect the best people for the job, regardless of political party and stop accepting mediocrity because they have the right party affiliation. We need to get to a place where the statement, "Politicians say the darndest things," is a good thing and that it means that they have come up with an efficient and innovative idea to solving a problem. Currently, whenever a politician speaks we could not be further away from that solution-based reality.


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