Largely cross-posted from CTLocalPolitics: Our Primaries are Better than Yours!
The Jim Himes campaign has launched a new website devoted to Chris Shays’ idea of "oversight" (or lack thereof) from his perch on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee:
Chris Shays serves on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But instead of using his position to actually conduct oversight of private security contractors in Iraq and ask the tough questions that his job demands, he has been using it to relentlessly defend the Bush Administration and effusively praise witnesses like the CEO of Blackwater USA:
Video after the jump...
And don't forget to reward good behavior!
Also debuted on the site is a powerful 45 second webvideo highlighting Shays’ effusive praise of "the perfect job" performed by Blackwater, 2 weeks after employees of the company killed 17 Iraqi civilians:
The production quality is high, and it contrasts Shays’ "questioning" of the Blackwater CEO with the angry editorials on Blackwater that followed in the wake of the civilian deaths.
The site also includes other examples of the Shays brand of oversight, including his "oversight" of "remarkable person" (and potential Hatch Act violator) Lurita Doan, his bizarrely condescending questioning of the widows of contractors killed in Iraq, and his "oversight" of Don Rumsfeld over the conflicting stories surrounding the death of Pat Tillman.
Altogether, the site, and especially the web video, makes a devastating critique of Shays as unwilling to do his oversight job if it means conducting real oversight of the Bush administration and fellow Republicans.
By way of background, CT-04 is the last congressional district in CT and in New England represented by a Republican. Jim Himes has been running an amazing grassroots campaign (even outraising Shays' PAC money with small dollar donations in the second quarter!), but this is one is only going to get tougher: what limited money the RNCC has, this is where they will draw the line in the sand; the media market is expensive (NYC); and Shays, despite his "oversight," his 400 trips to Iraq, and his constantly shifting position on withdrawal (seemingly dependent on whether the year ends with an even or an odd number), Shays still has some popularity in the moderate district.
We would like to turn CT all the way blue; please help however you can!
If this is his idea of a perfect job, what kind of a job is Christopher Shays doing?
Indeed.
Largely cross-posted from CTLocalPolitics: Our Primaries are Better than Yours!
And don't forget to reward good behavior!