I’ve decided our elected officials in D.C. need a mother. Someone to kick their butts, give them tough love, and tell them that the world does not revolve around them in way only a mother can. Because right now if I was “Mommy D.C.” almost every single one of our elected officials would be in protracted timeout. Their latest childish, immature behavior that has me wanting to slap the bunch upside the head is the Thursday B.P. Congressional hearing. The problem is it wasn’t a hearing. It was a bunch of kids waiting for their time to show off. It was all “look at me,” “look at me!” (Please, I was getting flashbacks to my kids going off the high dive at the pool.) The whole thing was less about the oil spill and more about representatives getting their face time with the camera ensuring that the sound bites of them “showing big oil whose boss” would make it back home to their local T.V. stations and go out in e-mails to constituents. Do any of them do anything where their first thought isn’t how will this help me get re-elected? I’m pretty sure the lot of them were already mulling over how they could use their clip of them asking the” tough question” to the B.P. Oil loser in a campaign ad. I will give Joe Barton some crazy credit for at least going off script and shaking it up a little bit. Let’s be kind and call Joe an independent thinker, at least, on this. I also doubt the I.Q. levels of our representatives. Some of them seem brain wave impaired. I have no doubt that after their verbal spanking of Mr. BP a posse of them went to the Capitol Grill and were confused that shrimp from the Gulf Coast was no longer on the menu.
It was like watching children at a 5 -year-old’s birthday party trying to break open a pinata. Each representative took their whack at the B.P. pinata and then President Obama got his turn. He broke it open and 20 billion dollars fluttered out. Wow, 20 billion dollars that’s a lot of money for mere mortals. Unfortunately, the oil spill catastrophe will suck up that 20 billion faster than a kid guzzling down a Capri Sun after a little league game played in 95 degree weather.
There needs to be less talk, less pinata whacking and more action. Do we need all the posturing? It’s about as effective as trying to clean up this mess with a Huggies wet wipe. Let’s say a couple of kids set my neighborhood on fire. Would my husband and I convene all the neighbors to a meeting at our kitchen table and point fingers. Would we waste time while our neighborhood was burning down to the ground for all the neighbors to take turns pontificating and asking questions. Who bought the matches? Who thought of the idea to light the match? No. First we would put out the fire then bring on the world of hurt to the little pyromaniacs. In this media savvy age we live in everyone knows that grilling of BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward was going to be a giant waste of time. No surprise that he was in a permanent state of vague. He was coached in “hazy” speak and the next B.P. dude will be no different.
What would a mother do in this situation? Her first plan of attack would be to address the mess. Clean up always comes before hearing about what happened or who’s to blame. If the mother couldn’t clean up the mess on her own she would call in professionals. Then she would stand over the professionals and diligently watch their work. Interjecting (and by interjecting I mean giving them holy hell) when she didn’t think they were doing it right or fast enough. Even replacing the hired professionals if they didn’t quickly prove their worth. She would also confer with other mothers to get their ideas and opinions to make sure the clean up was being done in the best and most expedite way. The mother wouldn’t rest, until order was restored in her home. That would be job one. Job two would be assessing blame and heading out punishment. This would be down swiftly and fairly. No mother likes a long drawn out investigation. We’re like Dragnet – just the facts. If Tony Hayward pulled his vague routine on a mom it would go one of two ways. He would get sent to his room until he could come out and tell the truth or he would get smacked with a wooden spoon. Step three would be making sure everybody involved in creating the mess learned a lesson and safeguards would be in put in place so it wouldn’t happen again. Behavior would be changed. That’s the way moms roll. That’s why Washington needs a mother.
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