Friday, October 30, 2009

An Atta-boy to Clinton and Coburn




It strikes me as peculiar saying this since the last time I was in complete agreement with Hillary Clinton was back when she found out that her no-account husband had embarrassed himself, the country and her with his goings on with a young intern named Monica and then she proceeded to give him complete hell for it. That being said, Hillary did indeed get this one right too the other day when she made a visit to Pakistan in her role as Secretary of State.

When questioned by a group of Pakistani journalists regarding the United States’ irritation with the Pakistani government for not using enough resources to find and eliminate enemy Taliban/Al Queda terrorists operating in their country near the Afghanistan border she said, “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are, and couldn't get to them if they really wanted to”.

Now this statement has caused a minor uproar in Pakistan and even with some of the namby-pamby diplomat types here in the United States. Hillary, in an admittedly rare candid and truthful moment, simply stated a fact without sugar coating it. Evidently this is not something that is done by diplomats, but I say good for her to tell it like it is on this one! Thumbs up for HRC. Now if only we could get two in a row from her!


Also, I read an article during lunch today in the NY Times that was probably not meant to be necessarily complimentary towards Senator Tom Coburn, but which I found to make me admire the man greatly. Tom Coburn is a family doctor from Oklahoma and a Republican. He is not a party man though. He regularly frustrates the Republicans and absolutely infuriates the Democrats because he refuses to vote for any spending bills that aren't absolutely necessary and Constitutional. He has been nicknamed “Dr. No” accordingly. Senator Coburn has little love for Washington D.C., and heads home each weekend to be with his family and go to church where he is a deacon.

He realizes he is there to serve his constituents by making sure congress is not spending money foolishly. He is adept at using every trick in the book to delay, hinder, and neuter such bills, thus drawing the ire of most of his congressional colleagues but endearing himself to us working Americans. He has been quoted as saying, “If we wiped out the entire Congress and sent common people who have no political experience, we would get far better results than we have today.” My sentiments exactly and more than enough cause for me to give Dr. Coburn a big thumbs up!

2 comments:

Jim Marquis said...

“If we wiped out the entire Congress and sent common people who have no political experience, we would get far better results than we have today.”

Round and round we go. Statements like this aren't even worth a dime a dozen...hey, let's institute term limits and see how old doctor Tom feels about change.

Darrell Michaels said...

Since a vast majority of the American public isn't paying attention to what their elected officials are doing in their names and then votes them back into office based strictly on name recognition, I would agree that term limits would be a very good thing.

Having fools in congress for decades from both parties typically does not serve the public interest, as all they seem to want is consolidation of their own personal fiefdom's of power.