Ignorance In Congress

Yesterday morning I was reading and working while listening to "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke's Congressional testimony. There was the usual droning of statements masquerading as questions by various axe-grinding Representatives of both parties. Amidst this was the typically-nasty Barney Frank gravelling Republicans and prohibiting real exchanges of information, with questions squeezed into impractically small slices of time.

Later on, around lunch time, with the room nearly empty, they got around to a sallow, milquetoast-looking guy with whitish hair.

My God! It's my new Representative, Leonard Lance! I'd only seen the guy in those cheesy campaign mailers with his 2.2 kids and forgettable-looking wife. I do recall it was a vicious, nasty fight on personal bases between him and his Democratic opponent.

In any case, I stopped what I was doing to take the measure of this guy.

Boy, was I disappointed. It was obvious, as his eyes stayed glued to a piece of paper, carefully reading his remarks and questions, that he had absolutely no clue as to what he was saying.

Afraid of even looking up from his crib sheet long enough to make eye contact with Ben as he talked, Lance almost succumbed to running his finger along the text he was clearly reading word for word.

Mind you, this isn't rocket science. I could probably ask better questions of Bernanke off the cuff, as could thousands of business people with degrees and a few economics courses in their past.

But it was clear that Lance's staff intended to quote from his written questions, the better to pretend he had an actual grasp of what he mouthed.

It was a sad, sad performance. Yet another idiot who already needs to be booted out of office.

And he just got there!