"Sunlight is the best disinfectant." -- Louis Brandeis
Perhaps I have this wrong and I am hopelessly naive (or idealistic), but even though President Obama was elected as a Democrat, once elected isn't his constituency the entire American population, and isn't he supposed to serve all of them to the best of his ability? Or is the reality that he serves the Democratic agenda for eight years and then if the public becomes disenamored with him, they can then switch to a Republican president to serve their agenda?
it seems to me that politicians are a tad addicted to serving the people and special interests (a.k.a. lobbyists) that have supported and financed their campaigns instead of all the constituents they are supposed to be serving once elected.
If that is so, than perhaps we need to try something akin to a random drug test that we do with drug addicts to keep politicians clean. I don't think a drug or urine sample would do, but how about the following?
Following a random, but hopefully important vote or decision they have made, let's ask the politician in question the following three questions:
- In your position, what constituency are you serving/representing?
- What decision/vote did you just make?
- Will you now help us to understand how you came to make that decision/vote and how it is in the best interest of your constituency?
And BTW, if you are unable to provide a compelling and convincing explanation for how your decision/vote is in the best interest of your constituency, then it probably isn't.
I am calling such a quiz the Politician Random Accountability Test or P-RAT or maybe just RAT for short.
By the way, if this gets published I'm hoping Jon Stewart or Bill Maher or Steven Colbert will give it a look, so if any of you know them, I hope you'll send them the link.