When Elmer "Bud" Shuster decided to resign after 28 years in Congress, he faced a dilemma - which son should inherit his seat?
"Bud" claimed he was quitting the House because of health reasons - but truth be told - he was probably frustrated by his failed attempt to keep those complicated things called "airbags" out of automobiles. Just too darn complicated... Or perhaps it was those ethics complaints? The straw that broke the camel's back was probably the refusal by his fellow Republicans to suspend the term-limit rules on committee chairmanship. He wasn't going to stay in congress if he couldn't remain uber-powerful. Yes, probably best to just resign and pass the seat down...but to which son
The year was 2001 and he chose his son
Bill Shuster, the car salesman (hereafter, "Bud-lite").
And so Bill "Bud-lite" Shuster became indoctrinated as the replacement representative for Pennsylvania's 9th district. Things went pretty well for "Bud-lite" at first. He got re-elected easily in 2002. But then he got a primary challenger in 2004. So he had his campaign staffers spy on his opponent. The problems was that they got caught - and later one of them admitted that "Bud-lite" told him to do it. It was bad, he barely won the primary with 51%.
But don't worry. He felt much better after taking $15,000 from Tom DeLay and another $7,000 from Bob Ney. That helped him cruise to re-election.
He paid back the voters of the 9th district by proudly standing by his principles. He stayed true to...his buddies in the oil and gas industry ($39,400 in donations) by voting against penalities for price gouging. He also stayed true to Tom DeLay, voting to relax ethics rules so he could remain Majority Leader while under indictment and voting the GOP party line 97% of the time (source).
And he's a good steward of the land, what with that 0% League of Conservation Voters rating for the 109th Congress (108th 3%; 107th 10%).
But at least he's realistic about the situation in Iraq. After returning from a recent visit to Baghdad he said...
The situation on the ground is far better than has been reported, particularly with Iraqi Security Forces and Iraqi leadership.
Yes, Bill "Bud-lite" Shuster has accomplished so much in a short time. I think all those wonderful accomplishments should earn him a free pass from Democrats in 2006. But if you don't agree with me you could always help out Tony Barr. He needs 1,000 write-in votes get on the ballot for the general election and revoke Shuster's free pass.