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PAUL E. SCATES
(3/21/2007)
Government by Media What Walter Reed Reveals about Congress
I, Loyal Citizen of the Republic, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. – Congressional oath of office As soon as the Walter Reed Hospital scandal broke, we were deluged with stories about how “shocked and outraged” our senators and representatives are about the conditions identified by a journalist. Both houses of Congress immediately established committees “to investigate” the conditions reported at Building 18 of the Walter Reed complex (rats, cockroaches, moldy walls, months-long waits for paperwork processing and other shoddy treatment). What a shameful farce. Why didn’t our distinguished and esteemed Senators and Congressmen already know about these conditions? After all, both houses of Congress have standing Armed Services Committees, plus several subcommittees, and members are charged with the oversight of all facets of the military, from training, weapons research and development to pay and benefits of military personnel, etc. So why didn’t these committee members (and thus, both the Senate and the House) already know about these conditions? Walter Reed Hospital is only a few blocks from the Capitol Building, and committee members were responsible for knowing about such things, so why is it that Congress only reacts after some media outlet publicizes conditions there? The answer is that those long ensconced in positions of power and privilege, and rarely held accountable for their behavior and actions by an apathetic, willfully ignorant electorate, know they can easily appease the public with the mere appearance of action, especially when the media reports their “actions” and their phony shock and outrage so diligently. Those serving on the Armed Services Committees and subcommittees in both houses of Congress have clearly and shamefully neglected their responsibilities of oversight...so why should we believe that other members on new committees will do any better? Just as the Bush administration’s “solution” following 9/11 was the creation of more government (the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration), career politicians always see “more government” as the answer, regardless of the problem. The irony, of course, is that it’s government itself that is the true source of most of our problems in the first place. I guess you can’t expect those whose careers and livelihoods are dependent upon ever-increasing levels and scope of government to agree with that assessment, despite the fact that it was our Founders’ clear judgment. When the media attention is over (say by next week), that will be the last you’ll hear from Congress about what they’re doing at Walter Reed. But when the shameless parasites in Congress parade before the cameras to prate about what they’ve done to take care of the troops they’re so ardently “supporting,” just remember that Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Robert Byrd (D-WVa); Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), along with Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.), John Warner (R-Va), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Lindsay Graham (R-Fla), Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and their fellow senators on the Armed Services Committee and others on the Personnel subcommittee and the Readiness and Management Support subcommittee “didn’t know” about the conditions in Building 18 or, if they did, hadn’t done a thing about them. You can be at peace now, though, since these noble bastions of liberty and democracy have dutifully instituted more committees to investigate the problem. Same thing with the esteemed and dedicated members of the House of Representatives Armed Service Committee and their fellow representatives on the Military Personnel and Oversight and Investigations subcommittees, who have also voted to establish new investigations into the matter. It’s understandable that at least two of the senators on the Armed Services Committee might not have known about the conditions at Walter Reed, for ranking Republican John McCain and the perpetually anti-war, anti-American and pro-Hillary senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, are both campaigning for their party’s presidential nominations. But then...is that what we elected them to do, to try and feather their own nests, to increase their own political and prestige at our expense? I ask you, Americans, to read carefully that oath at the beginning of this essay. It’s the oath that each of our senators and representatives swear at the beginning of their terms. It’s current, and one-third of the Senate and all of the House of Representatives just recently took it, most of them not for the first time. Loyal citizen of the republic? When so many, even those on the Armed Services Committees and subcommittees, are the most vocal in their phony “support” of our troops even as they do everything in their power to inhibit the military’s effective prosecution of this war, how can they be seen as loyal to this republic? When so many in both houses of Congress introduce, support and otherwise promote anti-Constitutional measures relating to the murder of babies (and increasingly, the old and infirm), gun control, freedom of speech and religion, etc., how can we deem them faithful in supporting that same Constitution they so cavalierly dismiss? Do you honestly believe that they “well and faithfully discharge the duties...” of their offices, when only selected news stories prompt them from their self-serving concentration on the increase of their personal power and prestige and position? For almost six years now I’ve been pointing out the increasingly flagrant betrayal of that oath of office, and of the Constitution they falsely swear to uphold and defend, by the great majority of our elected senators and representatives. The Walter Reed Hospital revelations and the all-too-predictable “actions” by members in both houses of Congress are part of a distressingly common pattern: Members of Congress see their positions as their own, rather than bestowals of trust by the American people. They therefore aren’t interested in doing those jobs except when news stories shake us from our apathy and cause us to take a glance at what they’re actually doing. As I said, by next week it will be back to business as usual...the politics of personal career construction. And our wounded troops? Why, as Senators Kerry, Obama and others have noted, their efforts are “wasted” anyway, so why should our distinguished Congressmen and Congresswomen give a tinker’s dam about them? They don’t. Nor do they care about what you want, or what this nation needs, except when they must scurry to create the appearance of fulfillment of their sworn Constitutional responsibilities. When they get together at the various upscale watering holes in Washington after hours, do you think the Senate and House Democrats sit on one side and the Republicans sit on the other side of the room? Or do they join to gleefully drink to their good fortune, that the apathy of the American people allows them to blatantly lie to get elected, to continue lying as they betray their oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution, and that they need only spew a bit of meaningless rhetoric to deflect any blame for their abysmal performance and traitorous self-serving behavior, no matter how flagrant? Nobody holds them accountable for their perfidy and contempt for the American people; for their smug and comfortable disdain for our values and desire for moral and ethical leadership. The only ones who can are...you and I. And we keep re-electing them, again and again. It could be worse, I guess. At least our troops only have to deal with four-legged rats and roaches, and not the two-legged variety that infests Congress.
Formerly a liberal and an atheist, Paul E. Scates served as a Marine in Vietnam and is a lifelong student of American history, politics and culture. A former contributor to national website TooGoodReports.com, he writes his staunchly independent Conservative and informed Christian commentary for his fellow ordinary, working Americans, the “we, the people” who are ultimately responsible for preserving our Constitutional liberties. He welcomes your , pro or con.
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