I Got Yer Filibuster

It was probably a mistake, but on the way home from work last night I couldn't resist popping in to watch the Hallowed Fools and Shim Sham Squirrels of the US Senate in their all-night parade of lifeless packaging. Far as I recall, I've never been to the Senate, though maybe I was dragged through once as a tyke. I do know that I have no wish to return.

Right off the bat I'll say that I'm not going to name many names here. That's not because I don't want to or think it wouldn't be relevant. It's just that I don't have much clue who most of them were, and I couldn't care less. What I saw in my comparatively brief time in the peanut gallery was one flavor: Vanilla Tyrant. When they weren't proposing or worshiping yet another blatant violation of the Constitution, they were holding aloft pocket copies of it, or reading from it, or invoking James Madison, or talking about Romans, Cato, and democracy. Glory hallelujah.

Remind me: How many of that same body voted for the USA PATRIOT Act? In case you forgot, USA PATRIOT Act stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism."

Uh huh.

It seemed that the all-nighter was intended for discussion of judicial nominees and how they're being blocked. That's what I'd heard on C-SPAN radio on my way over. Shiver me timbers, but when I got there what I mostly heard was Jobs, Jobs, Create Jobs, Grow Jobs, and every other kind of job you can mention since Clinton got the Constitutional boot. (I'd like to take this opportunity to thank FDR for being such a horrible president.) A distinguished unit from PA had a helpful chart which told me how great the economy is. May I give you a tip? Don't visit the Senate while reading Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson without toting a sizable barf bag.

The action on the floor was all new to me. I don't get cable, and I probably couldn't stand to watch C-SPAN even if I did. First thing that struck me was the lighting. The floor's very well lit from a full ring of PAR cans on the ceiling above the gallery. Next came the sycophants. It's very much like the sideline of an NFL game, with people walking importantly here and there, so obviously aware they're in the light. I saw a couple of black folks too. What the hell? When did that happen?

The most amazing thing to me, like out of a Terry Gilliam movie, were the roving stenographers. They carry their steno machines around like . . . like steno machines wrapped around their necks, with little desks sticking out in front! That has to be one of the goofiest sights ever. Apparently they prefer hearing the speaker's natural voice over the amplified one, so they stand near whoever has the floor, dutifully taking down every utterance. Looks pretty strange when it's just the talker and the steno guy out there on the floor. Are they aware that about 95% of what's copied isn't worth a blue lobster claw? They tag team it. One comes over near the other when it's time to change shifts. They do a little synchro overlap, then the first guy stands down.

Note to self: Don't ever do steno for Congress. With all the snide comments I'd be rattling off in between the sanctioned bon mots, I'd never keep up.

As my head continued to spin around the room looking for interesting diversions as Senator Boring-O read from a paper, I found the C-SPAN audio guy and his magic panel. You've probably seen the strange, semi-circle seating arrangement in the Senate. It's duplicated on a pretty fancy gizmo with lighted, multi-colored buttons. When blowhard X gets ready to launch, the C-SPAN tech punches up his mike into standby mode and it lights up red. When he's live, it goes green. Checking out his panel helped me figure out where the speakers from the Democratic side were, because you can't see half of them from that part of the gallery.

Next are the cameras – high-definition, apparently. I counted six of them in 3 pairs in the gallery, on remote heads. Looked like each pair had a shotgun mic which might also be aimed remotely. "Testing 1, 2, 3."

Did I talk about Jobs? Damn, but those people are big on jobs. They seem to think it's their responsibility, or President Bush's, or somebody's other than free Americans, to "create jobs." I must confess something that . . . well, it may come as a shock, but I scream at my radio when I'm driving. Yeah, sometimes I'll punch through and listen to C-SPAN for a few minutes, and there's a bit of dialog there, most of it pointing out how full of it the various speakers are. My all time rant-meter winner though was when Supreme Court "Justice" Stephen Breyer was on C-SPAN speaking to students of DC's Bell Multicultural High School. Scary. The poor students would ask him questions, and you could just hear him making up the tyranny on the fly. Far as he's concerned, he's the final dude. He and his proud bunch of ringwraiths are the boss of you. I'd like nothing better than to debate the Constitution on national TV with that airhead.

And the senators are almost as bad with their invincible, sacred keywords of "framers," "Constitution," and so forth. Imagine me sitting up in the gallery having to keep my mouth shut. I suppose I had to keep my mouth shut. Nobody told me I had to. A secret service looking guy did walk over later on (around 04:00) to tell me that I wasn't allowed to stand up (I was checking out a monitor on the other side of a rail). Capitol Police – earpiece and all.

That was enough for me. I went out in the hall and talked to a couple of guys. One was regular Senate type staff, and the other was another Capitol Police plain clothes guy. I asked about security, who was packing, etc., and they were pretty cool. Something had been bothering me with all the security checks though, and I wanted to ask them about it. I fired for effect: "This country was founded on the belief that the government should be open to overthrow. Some would argue that American government has a responsibility to be 'overthrowable.' Do you ever talk about that on the job, in relation to the extreme security here?"

"What do you mean?" He was starting to get interested, professionally speaking.

"I mean that the founders of this country – Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, guys like that – they felt that it was important for government to fear the people, and that if the people feared the government, we had tyranny. They wanted government that responded to and served the people, and in some ways knew it could be taken out. Do you ever wonder what it is that these guys are afraid of, to the point where they have armed guards all over the place? Is it ever discussed why people are pissed off at them?"

He angled a little more toward me. "Who are you talking about?" He was looking at me intently. (I have good "side of my eye" vision!)

"You have men with guns all over the place here. There must be a perceived threat for that to happen, and I'm guessing that the threat is from people who are angry at what they do here. How long have you had such tight security?"

"The Capitol Police were founded in 1828."

"Okay, but was it this many people with guns?"

"No. Security gets increased with every incident." They discussed a couple of bomb threats, though there were some things they wouldn't talk about in detail, including which senators had been threatened, which senators are guarded, etc. I mentioned that perhaps if Congress confined itself to Constitutional scope, there wouldn't be that much for people to be angry about. Basic Bastiat 101. I probably talked with these guys for about 20 minutes, and I doubt the Capitol Police earpiece man took his eyes off me for more than 2 seconds after I asked if they were packing. That was after I went through 2 metal detectors and had every electronic device x-rayed and placed in storage (including my vehicle key fob).

Something is wrong there. There's too much power concentrated in Washington DC – too much to get upset about. And for all the blather from down there on the floor of the Senate, you won't hear them complaining about their power. There are no Ron Paul's there. One man's Constitutional violation is another's ticket to reelection.

One name I won't forget from last night's silliness: Barbara Boxer. Would it be illegal for me to say that somebody needs to put a cork in her mouth and get her a job doing something useful (e.g., Burger King drive-thru detail)? Believe me, you could hear her through a cork. What a despicable sophist. She got up and raved some horror story about a nominee, and even though I was agreeing with her, I was still thinking that she has to be one of the most annoying people in government. As bad as Charles Schumer? Nah, not quite. But up there. Her story was about a woman who went in for a private medical visit (I think it was a breast exam), and later found out that the creepy lab-coated guy with her doctor wasn't a doctor, but a rep from a drug company. I got ticked off just hearing it. I was all for the outraged woman. According to Boxer, the nominee was reported to have struck down the woman's case. Boxer then went on and on, and even more on and on, listing special interest groups who'd come out against this judge. It was a pile. Well, maybe she had a point, despite her delivery.

Later we got the real story. For arcane reasons in California, the nominee had barred the case from proceeding only regarding the drug rep, and had forwarded the case against the doctor. The plaintiff later went on to win damages from the doctor, and, under California law, it could have been the full amount that had been asked from the 2 parties before they were pared down to one. Though you're apparently not allowed to say it on the Senate floor, it turns out that Barbara Boxer is a phony baloney liar. Publicly outed as a flim flammer, she then comes back on five hours later as if nothing happened, taunting the other side (who call themselves "Republicans," I believe) again with epithets of whiners, losers, spoilsports, whatever. Throw her any angle and she'll argue it. There's no conviction there, but plenty of drama.

Another phenomenon which I'd just as soon never see or hear again is the phony tag team which was set up between senators on the same side. Goes a little something like this:

One senator will be in the middle of a 15-minute speech about something or other (little of it on topic) when a guy a few seats over gets fired up, asking if he could be so bold as to interrupt. The intended effect is one of "I just couldn't contain myself anymore, people," but when you're there in person watching all the parties, you see the preparation that goes on for each speaker before he even hits the floor. First a page drops by with a glass of water for his desk. Then another page brings a temporary lectern over for the top of his desk. Then the blatherer of the hour steps up and begins to preen, buttoning his coat, shaping his helmet head, and so forth. Goes on for a while. The C-SPAN guy is all over it, getting that red light lit well before he speaks.

Then out of the blue, the on-deck senator just has to interject something along the lines of, "Uh, Mr. President, I wonder if I might ask my distinguished colleague from Podunk to yield for a comment. Is the Senator aware that in the last 3 quarters of President Bush's term, misplaced snowballs were reduced by a factor of 4? And is the Senator further aware that those snowballs were snowballs that had been carried over from the Clinton administration's mismanagement and tic tac toe?"

The other Pro Wrestler would parry like in a cheap newscast, "Why yes, I am aware of what the Senator from Sleazedale so eloquently relates. I might add, in addition, that in my freshman term in this sacred body, I . . . aw hell, I went and said 'sacred body', and now I can't stop thinking of Nastassja Kinski." He'll recover and go on.

It was 20 minutes into that cycle when I found myself suddenly back in time at those boring childhood summers, stuck at some camp out in the woods listening to my dad give 'em that old time religion. Evangelical preachers have this thing where they bring it down. Way down. And everything gets super quiet and pausey – sort of like whispering announcers at a golf game, but with that spiritual flavor. Well the guy from PA did this routine, and he milked it for 3 times longer than the nationally accepted standard. You have to ramp it up a bit now and then, so he threw in a couple of fist slams on his desk. Very moving. Very fake.

'Round about that time, I found myself wanting to leap over the railing. What the hell, the C-SPAN audio guy was right there. I would say, "Punch me up on Row 4, Desk 6; I'm fixin to light 'em on fire, brother!"

And I'd jump, pouncing on whatever desk was below, then making my way over to the clip-on mic assigned to the button already moving from red to green. And I'm on!

"I'd like to thank the wank Senator from wherever for zipping it. I thought I'd give this 'deliberative body' the rare chance to hear from one of 'the people' this morning. Through what is actually an illegal policy from an organization which claims to honor the US Constitution, I am disarmed; you have nothing to fear other than the truth. I sat up there listening as long as I could, and it was difficult. You see, I am one of those rare freaks who actually reads the Constitu . . ."

And there I would lie, a bullet through my foot (cops are typically lousy shots), waiting to be handcuffed, hauled away, and thrown down the memory hole.

Anybody heard from that Tractor Bomber guy recently?

Thought not.

November 14, 2003

Charley Hardman (send him mail) was born in Washington DC.

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