| The filing-for-office deadline came and went, and Denny Rehberg dodged a bullet.
This year, of all years, would have been the year for the Tea Party to run to the right of Rehberg and keep him honest, bringing Tea Party constituents along for the ride. And yet not a peep from the Tea Party. It shows you, once again, how the Tea-baggers lack teeth (figuratively, as well as literally).
Rehberg is vulernerable to an attack from the Right. He voted in favor of the greatest invasion to Americans' privacy rights ever made, the Real ID Act, which would have required Montanans to carry what is essentially a Federal ID Card. (HR 1268, became law 2005.) That drives the black helicopter crowd nuts. The State Legislature, including every single (humiliated) Republican, had to step in and pass a law forbidding this breach of privacy and state's rights that Rehberg foisted on us.
He voted to buy eight Gulfstream corporate-style jets to ferry rich, important Congressmen around the globe, $54 million a piece, replete with LCD monitors, plush carpeting, and, (quoting from the brochure for the aircraft) "room for golf clubs and other executive conveniences" that Rehberg has become accustomed to.
His personal shortcomings have also come under public scrutiny lately. No, actually, I'm talking about how he got wasted, let a friend drive drunk, and ran up an estimated $1.5 million tab for health care and work comp claims for himself and his staff; and now a poaching incident, the kind that usually takes place when New York City slickers pay a guide an extra few thousand to break the law to get themselves a nice trophy.
Rehberg is lucky that no one told the Tea Party that he voted for every single bloated budget that George Bush put forward. These budgets spent more money than in any other eight year period in the history of Congress, and created the trillions of dollars of debt they're so upset about. |
