MSNBC's Olbermann Slams Senator Richard Shelby
February 11th, 2010Alabama’s senior Senator gets famous, but NOT in a good way…
MSNBC’s Olbermann echoes our story at Truthout.org, which you can see here, in case you missed it…
An Alabama Senator with long-standing ties to the US military-industrial complex and an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama is backing down from a direct confrontation with the White House today after taking the unprecedented step of announcing last week that he would filibuster all the president’s appointments to secure earmarks for his home state. US Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who switched from the Democratic Party to be part of the Gingrich revolution in 1994, placed a hold on more than 80 presidential nominations before the Senate last week. He relented on Monday, saying he had simply been trying “to get the White House’s attention.”
Alabama Senator Shelby Backs Down From Blocking Obama’s Nominees
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February 11th, 2010 at 9:11 am
The founders envisioned the Senate as a body that would be filled with wise, contemplative people who would base their actions on the best interests of all.
Great idea. Too bad it hasn’t worked out that way.
February 11th, 2010 at 9:40 am
There used to be wise guy or two in the Senate. Maybe one or two now from Wisconsin or New York, but not from Alabama or the South.
Total morons now, but the Dumbocrats can’t even find anybody to run against Shelby or Sessions. Pathetic!
February 11th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Shelby would be doing this because he gets mega bucks from such contractors, if not directly then indirectly via individual employee contributions.
And where possible, to get a great big building named after him.
February 11th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
How many highways and federal buildings are named after deceased members of Congress who nobody now remembers? Must be dozens if not hundreds. And, almost without exception, these individuals are “honored” simply because they got the pork that enabled the structure to be built, not because of any enduring civic leadership qualities they had.
There are exceptions to that, of course, but almost all the exceptions happen to be people who never were in Congress, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And coincidentally, the non-Congress members nearly all deserved having something named after them because of an enduring civic leadership quality.
One of my pet reform ideas is to ban naming anything after any elected public official until they’ve been dead at least 50 years. After 50 years, if they are still remembered, then go ahead and do it. Otherwise, it’s just an excercise in political silliness.
February 11th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
It can backfire. I recall spending an entire day riding around Birmingham on the payroll of the New York Times with a free-lance photographer taking pictures of all the sites with Richard Scrushy’s name on them. Mostly street signs, a college campus and a statue of him near the old South Highlands Hospital, where HealthSouth started.
The statue is now gone, of course, sort of like Saddam Hussein’s in Baghdad. Most of the streets have been renamed. Anybody know what they call Jeff. St. in Shelby County now? I doubt it’s still the “Scrushy” campus, although I guess he did deserve it for a time as a former grad who made it big.
I agree with the idea that we should not name roads and buildings after living politicians. Undoubtedly, it just makes their heads grow as if they actually deserved such public praise.
I’ve only known a few elected officials who I thought lived up to the ideals of their high offices. There are a couple from Birmingham, however, even one Republican. This will come as a total shock to the right-wing attack machine, but the Congressman from my home district in Jefferson County for my entire youth was a Republican named John Buchanan.
Even though he was a Baptist minister I always liked and respected him. It was a sad day when he was unseated by a Moral Majority Republican in the 1980 primary for being “too liberal.” The guy who beat him only lasted one two-year term. He was so utterly forgettable I can’t recall his name, unless it was Albert Lee Smith.
Buchanan went on to work with The People for the American Way, charged with fighting to keep that high and impregnable wall between church and state. It was seriously breached in that year, 1980, and it has been under assault ever since.
I’ve tried to reach Buchanan a time or two, with no luck. Not sure how he’s doing, although I haven’t heard of his demise, and surely there would have been an obit at least in the Birmingham papers.
I will stand with the likes of Buchanan and Norman Lear on that question as hard as I can for the remainder of my days. It is still a fight worth fighting.
And David Broder of the Washington Post thinks Sarah Palin had “pitch-perfect populism” like George Wallace and Jimmy Carter? “The lady is good,” he concludes.
Me thinks Mr. Broder has a crush — and not just on Sarah Palin. He wants to be read by Republicans as well as Democrats. An old fashioned idea. Might work. But nah, Republicans don’t get their news from newspapers.
If they ever did they don’t any more.
Or maybe, Mr. Broder wants a personal interview, and this is the softball setu-up? In that case, I’ll wait and see before writing the column totally writing him off…
If he wants to be read by Democrats — and other journalists — this better be followed by something scathingly tough.