May 31 2008
U. S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland chastises Sheila Jackson Lee
I could not have said this better!
You know you are having a bad day in Congress when your Gentleman “friend” take direct aim at one of the other members!!
Published Thursday, May 29, 2008
Westmoreland regrets use of veterans as ‘political pawns’
By Winston Skinner
The Times-Herald
There are a lot of gray heads at the meetings of White Oak Golden K, and when U. S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland asked how many men in the audience were veterans, dozens of hands went up.
About 70 people attended the club’s meeting Thursday at the Special Events Center. Westmoreland said he regrets the way veterans have come to be used in political banter in Washington.
“It’s a shame that veterans have become political pawns,” he said. “That’s what we’ve come to today. It’s not what the founding fathers had in mind.”
Westmoreland complimented White Oak Golden K member Harold Barron on his leading the club in singing “God Bless America” after the pledge to the flag.
Westmoreland said that too often “how God has blessed America” has been forgotten. He said God has been “very merciful” toward the United States and that God needs to be “put back in” public life, not removed from it.
Westmoreland expressed regrets that he never finished college, though he did attend for two years. It is common sense, however, and not education that is in short supply in Washington, according to the Grantville Republican.
“We don’t have a lot of common sense in our government,” he stated. “One thing I’ve found out being in Congress, you don’t have to be that smart to be up there.”
Westmoreland was critical of Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Texas Democrat who holds degrees from Yale University and the University of Virginia Law School. He said Jackson-Lee speaks frequently from the well of the House.
“I don’t care what it is, she will speak about it,” he said. “You can have more education than you can use.”
Westmoreland questioned a system in which people spend $10 million to run for a two-year House seat that will pay $160,000 per year.
He said that when America was being formed, leaders such as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were “actually recruited by their neighbors” to serve in Congress. Although many of those early patriots would have preferred to stay at home, they served.
He said many public officials today have become “Vegematic” candidates. He referred to the commercials for the Vegematic kitchen gadget of decades past, stating it worked perfectly on TV but not at home. Westmoreland said the actor in the Vegematic commercial was told where to stand, what to do and what to say.
“We have hired media people to do that, to make our politicians into a product. The difference is the Vegematic had a 30-day guarantee,” he said. Westmoreland suggested voters too often find the person they elected is “not really the same product” they thought they were getting.
“We can blame the politicians for being bad all we want, but we’re the ones who elected them,” Westmoreland said. “The American people need to be careful.”
He urged the Golden K members to share with their children and grandchildren what America is about and their own life experiences. “A lot of kids don’t know the kind of heritage this nation has,” he said.
While America has lots of problems, it also has the greatest government in the world, he said, and one that offers its people “the opportunity to go out and do something” about issues that concern them.
Westmoreland said he believes Americans would fight a foreign power that sought to destroy the country. “Our enemies right now are really within,” he said. “If something does happen to this country, it will come from within, not the outside.”
What are your thoughts?
John Faulk
