This is not an important diary, but it may amuse one or two of you.
As we all know, Joe Barton ran a GOP talking point up the flagpole, and drew a lot of cannon fire when he suggested that Congress should apologize to BP, apparently for spilling their valuable oil. He wasn't speaking off the cuff, he was reading from prepared remarks, so if it was a "gaffe," it was a well thought out one. Like many here, I suspect he voiced something the rest of the GOP believes, but as soon as the results were in, they backpedaled from that position.
I was interested in how far they would go to put distance between the GOP and that talking point, so I made a few calls.
Hatch and McConnell are my favorite targets. I have free long distance on my cell phone and I don't need them on speed dial because I have the numbers memorized. (McConnell 202-224-2541, Hatch 202-224-5251)
The question was simple. What did the senators think about the $20B set aside for reparations? After all, it was the ONLY subject discussed all week. I never reveal my own position in asking the question, which throws the staffers off the auto-response of passing your thoughts along to the senator. I told them that my opinion was not important, since I don't vote in the Senate. What did the senators think?
I was hoping for a response along the lines of support for the victims' fund, and I planned to follow that with, "Then the senator is fully in support of Mr. Obama on this?" As in, bipartisanship.
I never got that far. After being on the talk shows saying that, "[He] couldn't disagree with Joe Barton more," one would think that Mr. McConnell had an opinion. If he does, the staffer was unaware of it, even after I quoted his boss back at him.
Hatch was pretty much the same, he hadn't ventured an opinion on a subject was as far as I know discussed to death during the week.
As a bonus, I tried my own Senator Feinstein, since she might as well be a Republican. The staffer wanted to talk about the unemployment extension which Feinstein voted against, so I let him have it on that, saying that if the senator didn't have a guaranteed job and $75M in the bank, she might have a more sympathetic view. Then I asked where the senator stood on the $20B.
Apparently Senator Feinstein doesn't have an opinion either on whether the $20B set-aside is a GOOD THING or a BAD THING.
I told you it wasn't an important diary. But calling senators is far more fun while I drive than listening to talk radio. Give the mojo to someone who deserves it more than I do.