Friday, February 01, 2008
Arlen Specter, wasting our time and money
The Clarion was incensed to awake this morning to a New York Times article detailing Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector's desire to investigate the NFL's destruction of the so called "spygate tapes." The spygate tapes refer to a first week of the season game this year where the New England Patriots were caught taping the New York Jets defensive signals. Where is Specter's head? How clueless is he? He has been pursuing this matter since at least Novemeber 15th.
Senator Specter is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee and is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, yet the NFL is an issue he is going to devote time, energy and taxpayer money to?!! It is literally the most disgusting sort of grandstanding. Of course, in attempt to make as much mileage out of it as possible, it is the first link on the Senator's official senate.gov website this morning. The link leads directly to the NY Times article.
The Clarion was mad enough to fire off this email to the Senator this morning.
Dear Senator Specter,
If it is not evident to you that there are far more pressing priorities for our country then whether or not and how the New England Patriots stole the New York Jets signals, you should resign immediately!!
Quit wasting taxpayer's time and money on investigating sports. It is transparently grandstanding.
Sincerely,
Durham, NC
The Senator's almost immediate response is very telling. Here goes...
(Please do not reply to this email)
Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
I receive a large volume of E-mails, phone calls, faxes and letters every week from concerned citizens like yourself.
Unfortunately, due to the high volume of mail, I can only respond if you're a resident of Pennsylvania. If you need to find out who your U.S. Senator is please go to www.senate.gov.
Essentially, Senator Spector's answer is, "F-u, good sir. If you are not one of my constituents I could care less about your opinions. I won't even deign to respond to your correspondence."
Does anyone wonder why the American electorate is both jaded and dissatisfied? The avenues of communication are faster and broader than ever before, yet our elected politicans are able find easy justifications to ignore average Americans. Perhaps if the Clarion's letter had been sent via snail mail, with a donation check, Senator Specter might have paid it a smidgen more attention.
Note too, that this form letter email response is not just an Arlen Specter thing, this is the standard response when emailing any Senator save your own. How vile!!
Comments:
They are all like that - it's despicable! They have their interns sort through their snail mail with large garbage cans by their sides. Anything not postmarked with the appropriate district or state (depending on house or senate) gets tossed. Although when I worked for Pelosi, we did at least open the other stuff, and if it was something important, forward it on to the appropriate rep or senator.
A future lawyer friend of mine once made the point that what might have been termed good citizenship at one time; writing your congressperson four, five, six times a year about issues that were important to you, might now be grounds to get you on some kind of homeland security list, as a "potential nut/frequent letter writer" type.
From another friend comes about the warrantless wiretapping of, and subsequent FBI follow-up visit to, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer under the auspices of counter-terrorism.
From another friend comes about the warrantless wiretapping of, and subsequent FBI follow-up visit to, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer under the auspices of counter-terrorism.
Yesterday, Specter, trying to capitalize on every bit of the media opportunity that the Super Bowl presented, was on ESPN saying he wanted to ask Tom Brady if the Pats' tapes helped them beat the Rams in the big game.
We can only hope Specter constituents make him pay, if not physically, at least with a humbling, Rick Santorum style, crushing election defeat.
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We can only hope Specter constituents make him pay, if not physically, at least with a humbling, Rick Santorum style, crushing election defeat.
