US House as Italian campaign backdrop

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Friday March 03, 2006 · 8:10 AM PST

2006/03/03 · 08:10

A little inside story from my House on the Hill ...

Wednesday the Congress convened in joint session to hear an address by the leader of a major ally -- an infrequent and usually solemn occasion. Instead, I think we were cast as extras in an orchestrated political event for Italian TV.

We set aside legislative business and filed into the House Chamber only to hear right-of-center media billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi speak in Italian with no interpreter. Organized applause was prompted at certain points from the uncomprehending crowd (Members of Congress plus "blue-coated interns, sent in to fill empty seats").

C-SPAN snubbed the event -- a Joint Session of Congress! (Doesn't C-SPAN cover everything?) But the rousing reception aired live overseas, on Berlusconi's own TV stations, skirting his country's equal-time laws in a tough election cycle. Read More

Atwa in Iraq: A Tale of Two Villages

Jim McDermott

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Monday November 21, 2005 · 6:40 AM PST

2005/11/21 · 06:40

Once upon a time in Iraq, a man married a young woman from a village nearby, while his sister married the woman's brother. Each couple made their home in the village of the husband.

It was the best of times in the first village, where the bride bore her husband three sons in quick succession.

It was the worst of times a few miles away, where her childless sister-in-law became an object of scorn. Unable to bear the increasing weight of social stigma in her new home, the barren bride threw herself in the well and drowned.

The people of her home village were outraged by the treatment she received, and set out bent on vengeance.
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The Fall of the House of Ethics

Jim McDermott

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Thursday April 14, 2005 · 9:05 PM PDT

2005/04/14 · 21:05

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
— George Santayana

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct -- a.k.a. "Ethics" -- is embarked on a course that has been trod before.

Gather 'round the virtual bonfire, and I'll share a true tale of incestuous dealings, strange scratchings and foul odors emanating from behind stone walls, and things buried that refuse to die. I was there, I saw this with my own eyes, I have the scars to show for it, and the encounter haunts me to this very day.

In 1993, as Fred Grandy (R-IA/Love Boat) and I chaired the Ethics Committee, Newt Gingrich came rapping, rapping at our chamber door ... seeking clearance to televise a college course on practical politics, and nothing more.

Fred and I sternly advised the Minority Whip that he could teach the course -- unpaid -- provided he follow all the rules of the House and the laws of the USA. Little did we know then what lay in store.
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Emil Verban Memorial Society Memorial (and poll)

Jim McDermott

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Monday April 04, 2005 · 6:19 PM PDT

2005/04/04 · 18:19

As the season opens and the Cubs go back to Wrigley field, it is a big day for me and other members of the Emil Verban Memorial Society.

All true Cub fans remember Emil Verban who went to the plate more than 1100 times [check that - 2,911 AB!] and hit one home run. For me, going back to Congress every day - like today - is a chance to hit a home run .... say like getting a Universal Health Care System for everyone.

Society member George Will (who salutes Verban as a symbol of "mediocrity under pressure") says being a Cub fan made him a conservative. It sure didn't work that way with me. This is a true liberal Progressive talking, and I've been watching since the days of Bill Nicholson, Andy Pafko and Phil Cavaretta.

This is our year, Boston!
Jim McDermott

Mar-19-2003: War in Iraq. Mar-19-2005: Now What?

Jim McDermott

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Thursday March 17, 2005 · 5:31 AM PST

2005/03/17 · 05:31

The Iraq War turns two on Saturday, and I hope you will share the occasion thoughtfully wherever you find yourselves. Seattle's peace community will rally (12:00) at Seattle Center and march (1:30) to Westlake Center. I'll see many of you there, and invite extended discussion at my 11th Annual Potato Festival later in the day.

It is almost impossible to be coherent about the situation in Iraq. 1500 Americans dead. Over 10,000 maimed in mind and body. Too high a price for no increase in national security.

Today's "liberation" optimists give us the purple finger, but this evidence raises a sense of deja vu. The optimists were applauding on September 4, 1967, when our puppet government in Vietnam won national elections with 83% turnout. Eight years and 40,000 body bags later, the last liberators scrambled into helicopters on an embattled US embassy roof.

President Bush, with his usual cocksureness, tells us we'll stay until this "fragile democracy" is stable. The problem is we're in a guerrilla war, but we don't have the troops to fight one. Read More

Social Security: Don't buy the Fear Factor!

Jim McDermott

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Friday March 04, 2005 · 5:33 AM PST

2005/03/04 · 05:33

"Fear does work, yes. You can make people do anything if they're afraid."

Some of you may remember this line of mine from Fahrenheit 9/11. Some of you also know me as the most liberal member of the House, or the perennial champion of single-payer health care, or -- in the footsteps of Eleanor Roosevelt, John Kenneth Galbraith and Walter Reuther -- as President of Americans for Democratic Action.

Today I'd like to share my thoughts as a very senior Democrat on Ways and Means (the committee of jurisdiction on Social Security) ... and as the world's least senior blogger.

You can take the President at his word when he says "I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt". Of course he does. Remember when all he wanted you to think about was nerve gas, smallpox and mushroom clouds?

Iraq didn't have Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Social Security isn't going bankrupt. Read More

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