The 110th Congress is about to be sworn in. I've been popping into various threads of late, with pictures gathered from the websites of those leaving office. This here's a photo album diary, bidding them farewell. These are Congressmen & Senators who left power in 2006. Plus a couple of Administration types.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out!
Mark Foley with a young friend. Foley turns up in almost all the pictures of events for protecting children. (Shudder.)
THE SENATE
I was disappointed that Lincoln Chafee's website didn't include the picture of the bridge blowing up after he depressed the plunger. He's definitely having more fun here than he did during his losing campaign! Mike DeWine (OH) looks like he has indigestion. Hard time to be a Republican in Ohio, and we're glad to have the majority back. Conrad Burns (MT) seems like he's about to nod off, perhaps worn out from one of his embarrassing rants. The voters of Missouri didn't think Jim Talent had the right kind of Talent for them. Holier-than-thou Rick Sanctimonious Santorum got his comeuppance. What a relief for the citizens of the Keystone State! George Allen trades on his daddy being a football coach. Often. But did his daddy coach him on how to throw the thing right?
TENNESSE SENATE SEAT
We didn't take the Senate seat of retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. But Harold "I like football and I like girls" Ford gave it a good run. Likely we'll be hearing more from him in years to come.
When the picture was taken of Frist (above) at the Boy Scout Jamboree (July 2005), he saw himself as the Republican heir apparent for the Presidency. In publishing this picture to the world, one wonders if Frist and his "people" are or are not aware of the iconography it borrows from Leni Reifenstal, who made the uber-documentary, Triumph of the Will, glorifying Hitler. It's disturbing either way.
THE HOUSE: DISGRACE
The midterm elections were influenced by the erupting corruption of the Republican House. Four members left office in disgrace this year: Foley (pictured with a young page, above), and three others in trouble with the law. Two of these - Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney - are currently serving prison terms. Last January, the House took an extra month off, during January, to accomodate Tom Delay's trial for money laundering in Texas. The trial's not over yet, and former Democratic Congressman Nick Lampson won his former seat. And in the meantime, Delay's taken up blogging. Except someone else ghost-writes it for him.
THE HOUSE: RICHARD POMBO
Richard Pombo was the first sitting Committee Chair to lose his seat in over a decade, and the highest ranking Republican to lose. Jerry McNerney, the new Congressman from CA-11, is referred to as the dragon slayer in the halls of Congress, where he says it surprises him that everyone recognizes him. The Resources Committee will be reverting to its proper name of Natural Resources Committee, and all Pombo's pernicious late-night sneak legislative attacks have come to an end. Many people here have helped this happy circumstance come about, so cheers to the dragon slaying multitude! Anyone back in DC for the swearing-in festivities? Please tip back a glass for me.
THE HOUSE: PENNSYLVANIA
The Keystone State had a seismic change in its Congressional delegation, with four seats changing parties. I couldn't find a picture of Curt Weldon in his trademark tinfoil hat. But I did find several pictures of him with Libya's Moamar Khaddafi (or however you spell it). Oddly, they appear to like each other. The guy with Dubya & his ice cream cone is Don Sherwood. He's the "family values" guy who insists he did not try to strangle his Peruvian mistress (in the country legally or not?) Mike Fitzpatrick looks like he's dreaming of being just like Sen. Rick Santorum. And they were alike in losing their elections in this past November's midterm. Melissa Hart lost her seat, too. Here she is in the obligatory hard hat picture, but this one has the bonus of being garishly disrespectful of the U.S. flag at the same time. Does she see the irony of running around in this thing, considering she supported amending the Constitution to forbid "disrespecting" the flag? I cannot understand why these people's heads don't just explode from all the cognitive dissonance within.
THE HOUSE: NEW ENGLAND
Rob Simmons (CT) is in one of those obligatory House website pictures - a firefighter photo op. Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana's one of the few without one of 'em. Nancy Johnson (CT) comes across as a sweet grandma, and has a fairly "liberal" voting record (for a Republican). But we can judge by the company someone keeps. Here she's with her friend Babs, which reminds us that she voted for Republican Majority, and so has been part of the problem. The voters of her district thought so, too.
Both of New Hampshire's seats changed parties from Republican to Democratic in 2006. The two losers were Charles Bass, who pulled his website down quickly thereafter. And Jeb Bradley, who looks a little like W.C. Fields to me. Here, he's in another obligatory Congressional picture: posing in Iraq, in body armor. FWIW, the "body armor" picture has only become de riguer lately. In the early months of the war, they did not have to wear it.
THE HOUSE: NEW YORK
Sherwood Boehlert, who retired, was a "reasonable" Republican, and Chairman of the Science Committee. Funny, he never got one of those Annapolis Center awards for "Science in Public Policy" like Richard Pombo & Sen. James Inhofe (OK) did. But Dick Cheney raised money for him, and he voted for the Republican Majority. The voters of NY-24 were ready for a change, and voted Democrat Mike Arcuri to replace him.
Sue Kelley and John Sweeney, both Republicans, lost their bids for relection. Rudy Giuliani raised funds for both of them, and one or the other of them might end up working for his upcoming Presidential bid. The former Mayor of New York has gathered a lot of chits during these midterms. Ms. Kelly found herself a very good photographer. Mr. Sweeney is an avid fan of the New York Yankees. But it still seems odd that he wore a Yankees cap with academic gown for a graduation speech. Did I mention that I can't figure out how these people's minds work?
THE HOUSE: AGRICULTURAL HEARTLAND
Jim Leach and Gil Gutknecht lost their seats this fall. This summer's massive drought, which is consistent with global warming predictions, may have played a role in their losses. No disaster relief was forthcoming from the Republican Congress, despite passionate pleas from Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND). Slow-motion disasters like droughts aren't as sexy as fires and floods and Category 5 hurricanes. There's a lot of pain and trouble across the northern plains, birthplace of the Progressive tradition. I'm counting on Sen. Jon Tester to contribute to bringing that tradition back to life. Gil Gutknecht's one of those Congresscritters with a lousy hairpiece. I can't figure out why they post some of these pictures of themselves. And the stuff they do! Jim Leach took part in a "Goat Race" to look like a man of the people. But WTF are those construction paper "Indian" headbands about? Tacky.
THE HOUSE: OHIO VALLEY
Anne Northrup, KY, had pretty much scrubbed her internet presence by the time I went looking for pictures of her. I'm not sure why, but most of the pictures of Chris Chocola (IN-02) are in shorts, and strike me as weird. Is it because he isn't wearing socks with his sneakers? I'm thinking the "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" team would find he didn't need a lot of makeover. Odd, for his demographic.
Indiana was bad news for the Republicans. They lost three seats. Aside from Chocola, John Hostettler and Mike Sodrel got pink slips from the voters.
THE HOUSE: THE SOUTH
Clay Shaw lost in Florida; Charles Taylor in North Carolina. I don't know a lot about the south, so if more's to be said about these two, someone else is gonna have to do it.
THE HOUSE: KATHERINE HARRIS
It's hard to pick just one picture to represent Katherine Harris, the Queen of Ridicule (as in she's the object of it). Even with these, I left out so many memorable pictures of her. I've got so used to making fun of her, I'm almost going to miss her.
THE HOUSE: GOLDEN THRONES
Here's another Katherine Harris picture, together with another GOP Florida Congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, sitting on Saddam Hussein's Golden Throne in Baghdad. I found this one ages ago, but just came upon the bottom pic. That's another of this year's Republican losers, Jim Ryun (KS-02), on the late Uday Hussein's throne. If anyone knows the name, rank & serial # of the person he's sitting with, I'd love to know about it.
THE HOUSE: BIDS FOR GOVERNOR
Four Republican House members gave up their house seats to run for Governor of their home states. Three of them lost, by big margins (even in Oklahoma) - and Dems picked up two of those seats in the House. The one on the left, Butch Otter (Idaho) looks like he wants to be Jerry Lee Lewis. What he's gonna be is Governor of Idaho, and one of the more fringe wingnuts, Bill Sali, won his seat.
Meanwhile, Jim Nussle (IA-01) is looking for a new job. There's a peculiar, if unintended, irony in finding a picture of the late Chairman of the House Budget Committee posing on the Capitol steps with the "Pork Queen". You can't make this stuff up! Bob Beauprez failed in his bid to become Governor of Colorado.
Having looked through tons of Republican websites, I've found certain recurring themes. The elected official must be shown pinning a medal on a veteran from some past war; they must have a "My Pet Goat" moment at a public school; they must visit a hospital; they must pose with firemen, police and national guard units, and so on. And they must be pictured somewhere in a hard hat.
THE HOUSE: ARIZONA
Jim Kolbe, an openly gay Republican member from Tucson, publicly refused to endorse the wingnut nominated to replace him, who lost the race for AZ-08. At the same time, voters in AZ-05 decided the didn't want to keep wingnut J.D. Hayworth on the job either. It would appear that people who live along the border aren't keen on the Republican's extreme and unrealistic immigration plans.
LAST, BUT NOT LEAST
A month after the midterms, there was a runoff in Texas. District 23 has the longest stretch of border of any Congressional district, and it was said people didn't like Henry Bonilla's vote for the wall along the border. Maybe that's why he lost. But maybe also, the whole Republican shtick, like that Grover Norquist's some kind of power broker, is getting stale, and people are sick and tired of that, too. Meanwhile, aftershocks from Tom Delay's re-redistricting misadventure meant that Ciro Rodriguez ran in two districts this year - neither of which he used to represent. So we should all be extra happy for Ciro Rodriguez, because he's been through a lot to win this seat. And a fitting extra kick in the pants for Tom Delay.
AND FROM THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH
No comment necessary - just relief that they've got less power than they used to.
THE POLL QUESTION SHOULD READ:
"Which one are you most pleased to see go?
Though it works as a Rorschach: some readers are answering "Which one should go to jail?". Some kind of edit error (I could have sworn I filled it in!), but somehow got lost along the way...