I hope you are watching the historic debate on the House floor on C-SPAN.

If you are, you would have just seen Rep. Terry Everett, R-Enterprise, Ala., make one of the worst speeches in the history of the United States House of Representatives.

It’s no wonder you rarely see Rep. Everett making speeches on the House floor. He’s one of the most invisible members of Congress because he’s just a terrible public speaker. His speech was slurred like he was on drugs, but it could have just been nervous dry mouth.

How can someone be that nervous and/or inarticulate after being in Congress for more than 20 years?

I know Everett personally. He used to be a newspaper publisher. He owned Gulf Coast Newspapers in Baldwin County in the early 1980s. He sold out the six-newspaper chain for $3 million in about 1984 and went on to use the money to finance his own run for Congress. He’s been there and largely unchallenged ever since, a prime example of incumbent dead wood.

Of course he supports President Bush and his escalation of the war in Iraq, because he is a do-nothing, yes-man for the corporate, Republican right.

Most of his time in Congress is spent pushing the space arms race with China, since the biggest research and manufacturing company in his district is Lockheed Martin, which has the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile plant in Troy.

Lockheed Brings A THAAD To Troy

Everett Speech: Space is No Longer a Sanctuary

Of course none of this comes under any media scrutiny in Alabama, perhaps because of the top secret nature of some of the research and maybe because of Everett’s cozy relationship with newspaper publishers, a club to which he used to belong.

I know for a fact Everett was a corrupt newspaper publisher. I watched in ethical agony once when he changed the text of one of my stories. I covered the courthouse in Bay Minette when the Mobile Press-Register challenged Gulf Coast Newspapers’ exclusive second class mail permit to publish legal ads in Baldwin County.

Everett changed the text of my story and slammed the judge presiding in the case, trying to force him to rule in his favor - under my byline. Of course it backfired and just pissed off the judge.

Why the people of Alabama continue to elect dumbasses like Terry Everett is a mystery to me. They say you get the representation you deserve. I guess that’s true…

If you are representated by Everett and want to voice your displeasure, go to his Congressional Website and send him an e-mail or call him up and bitch.

Tags: Iraq War

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