American Grandstand

My favorite part of Gore's appearance before Congress to discuss global warming and communicate ideas has to be this little stunt by noted stunt legislator Lynn Westmoreland:

As Gore visited with former colleagues on the House floor around lunchtime, Rep. Westmoreland argued that the Democrat was violating recently enacted ethics rules rescinding floor privileges for former congressmen working as agents of a foreign government.

Because Gore serves as an adviser to Britain on climate change, Westmoreland said, he shouldn't have been allowed.

"It is in total violation of the House rules," Westmoreland, a third-term lawmaker from Grantville, said in an interview after raising a parliamentary inquiry on the issue. "They don't even pay any attention to their own rules."

Democrats called Westmoreland's interpretation absurd, saying Gore works with Britain in an informal, unpaid role and is not a registered foreign agent with the Justice Department, as the rule requires.

You might recall Westmoreland as the bozo who was unceremoniously exposed on The Colbert Report as a typical grandstanding little weasel poseur:

Imagine you are a rookie congressman with nothing to show for your first term in office just as elections are set to take place in the fall. Finally, you get a brilliant idea that you know will sell well in your socially conservative district: make it a law to have the ten commandments posted in all federal buidlings. And, just when you're set to go, someone asks you to name the 10 Commandments. Don't you hate it when that happens?

....

Unfortunately, for someone so enthusiastic about getting on TV and promoting his very own bill, Westmoreland was only able to name three of the ten.

I think that's flat-out hilarious pathetic. Even on half a bottle of anything, I'm good for at least eight of ten, at the drop of a hat. It's not that complicated, godless heathen atheist sumbitch that I am.

Yet a representative from one of the buckles of the bible belt can't even be bothered to be marginally competent at comprehending the scope of his own piece of two-ply legislation? Why we are where we are is not secret; why we keep allowing morons like this guy to lead us further down that road is the question.