My respect for members of Congress has sunk even lower than my respect for the Supreme Court. The 13% of people polled who actually approve of the job Congress is doing must be comprised of congressional members' relatives. Not that I've become cynical or anything, but I'm sick and tired of polls because they've couched the questions to elicit desired responses.
Years ago, when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, he invited everyone to let him know our opinions on a national matter. I believed him and emailed a long, thought-out response. I felt happy that he, or a member of his staff, would know how at least one citizen felt. How gullible I was back then.
My email to Speaker of the House Gingrich was bounced back within a robo saying that Speaker Gingrich only accepted mail from Georgia residents. How about that? If you couldn't vote for him, he didn't give a damn what you thought, not even concerning a matter affecting the nation. It soured me on Gingrich, but I still didn't "get it."
When President Obama was pitching his health plan, congressional representatives went on television, words flowing off their forked tongues, like "What the people of America want is ... yadda yadda " Well, I'm one of the "people of America" and they certainly don't know what I want, even though I keep trying to tell them, really tell them, and not through a phony poll.
However, I decided to give my local rep a chance, and went to the "official website" of Congressman and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-California). There I found a poll ready to be completed by constituents. Yeah, right. First page asked if I were "for" or "against" the president's plan. I clicked "for" and was not allowed to proceed. I thought I'd done it wrong, refreshed the page, and was again denied entrance to the actual poll. This happened four more times.
Mindful of how deceitful the bloviating, bullying Babbits of Congress are, I clicked "against," and was immediately taken to the poll. I closed the tab and did not vote at all. McCarthy later spoke publicly about his constituents being firmly against the president's health plan.
Again, at the debt ceiling debacle, I phoned McCarthy's DC office and the phone rang 100 times before I gave up. I called his local office and got a recording with office hours, and an emergency number. Next day, no response from the office during what they said were office hours. Same with the emergency number. Nothing.
Conclusion: When a politician says, "The polls tell us the people of America want ... " he is talking not only out of both sides of his mouth, but out of both sides of an opening considerably south of his mouth.
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