Voting out incumbents: A fix for broken government? 

BY TONEY ATKINS

At least one television news anchor believes he has the solution to what he calls a "broken government" -- vote out all the incumbents. Some disgusted Florida Courier readers say they agree.

On a Cable News Network (CNN) special last week and repeated several times over the weekend, the always outspoken anchor and commentator Jack Cafferty addressed the sometimes controversial issues that have many voters in Florida and elsewhere shaking their heads in disbelief and wondering exactly how to vote in the Nov. 7 election.

Cafferty noted, "I saw this great bumper sticker the other day, it read 'had enough?.' We're being bled to death, literally and figuratively in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have no border security to speak of, no port security fives year after 9/11, Social Security and Medicare well on their way to insolvency. Our national debt is staggering.
"China is kicking our butt," he continued. "Like I said, had enough? Our leaders lie to us and steal from us, and do it all with a straight face. They don't think we get it. I think we do. I honestly think the upcoming midterm elections will be breathtaking in the message that deliver to Washington. It's my fervent hope that every single incumbent on the ballot will lose. It's time to start over."

Cafferty said he believes U.S. citizens are "on the verge of what could well be the most important midterm election in this country's history. Look at these numbers. They're shocking. Sixty-eight percent think this country is headed in the wrong direction; more than two thirds. Sixty-four percent against the war in Iraq. Sixty-one percent disapprove of the job President Bush is doing leading the country. Oh, and the war in Iraq was his idea."

Most of Cafferty's disdain was directed at Congress, which he called "a joke." Pointing to poll numbers, he said, "Seventy-one percent disapprove of the job Congress is doing. The other 29 percent they just haven't read the paper. Our government is broke and Congress has failed to do anything meaningful. They vote on amendments for flag burning and gay marriage, but nothing on immigration, Social Security, health care -- nothing that matters to the middle class in this country."

Cafferty echoed many comments emailed by visitors to www.toneyatkins.com and spoken by Black and white readers of the Florida Courier who have found themselves disillusioned and concerned about a perceived crumbling state of the nation, its leaders and the lawmakers.

While Cafferty dished out criticisms of Republicans and Democrats equally, he definitely did not leave President Bush out of the equation that could impact what many see as one of the most important elections in many years. 

"The Bush administration has all but ignored the Constitution since 9/11, all in the name of national security and fighting terrorism," Cafferty said. "We're being overrun by millions of illegal aliens and Washington does nothing. There are serious questions about the integrity of our elections and our reputation overseas, (and) well, that's pretty much shot now, isn't it?"

At least one unidentified man seemed blissfully satisfied with our government's track. "I think everything is running pretty smooth. I think with the gas prices dropping back down and everything, I think they're getting their act together. The president is going to get reelected again this -- next term I believe."

His feelings were not the same as those corresponding with this reporter. Most believe the rapid drop in gas prices from the record costs earlier this year are totally political. One reader, who requested anonymity, said, "I've read that many of the energy corporations contribute large amounts of money to the GOP, and the Republicans want to keep control of the House and Senate. I believe that after the election, prices will go back up again -- but we will be told that it's because winter is on the way. I haven't seen that much more money in my pocket as a result of votes taken by those bums in Washington."

CNN correspondent Joe Johns said the 109th Congress has been called the "do-little, do-nothing, dysfunctional Congress."
Giving a "top ten" of sorts to illustrate, Johns noted that every member of the House of Representatives makes at least $165,000 a year. "So far, they have spent only 94 days in session. That's almost $1,800 a day. Nice work if you can get it."

On the illegal immigrant issue, he asked,  "Wasn't immigration reform supposed to be about the most important issue this year? And what did they do about it? They voted to build a fence."

Some Floridians and Georgians told the Courier reporter that they found it amazing that five years after terrorists staged the shocking attack on the U.S., lawmakers suddenly noticed that potential terrorists could join the many Mexicans in crossing the border into this country without a lot of fear of being stopped or caught. 

Johns pointed to what he called the "skanky" way Florida Republican Mark Foley is reported to have talked to former congressional pages in electronic messages and when he got caught, "like a real a profile in courage, he announced he was gay, abused as a teenager by an unnamed priest, checked into alcohol rehab, and left his colleagues to sort out the mess."
Implying an example of the alleged corruption in government, he said, "Duke Cunningham, a former fighter jock turned jailbird, once seemed like a poster child for patriotism until it turned out the California Republican was on the take and getting paid with just about everything but the stars and stripes."

He added: "The Congress is going to have to face it, it's addicted to pork, bridges to nowhere, a museum to honor the folks responsible for the New Orleans levees that failed, emergency money for non-emergencies, and at the end a record deficit."

Of candidates who failed to think before speaking about possible racist overtones, Johns referred to Senator George Allen of Virginia, who called a guy of Indian descent who was shadowing him "macaca," then claimed he didn't know what it meant. Well it means monkey." 

Topping his list of dubious accomplishments of the 109th Congress were Jack Abramoff and Bob Ney, "the corrupt couple, the lobbyist and the mayor of Capitol Hill united by guilty pleas, things of value exchanged for official acts, plus a passion for golf, meals, tickets to sporting events and power." 

Abramoff  is out of the lobbying group, but Ney is still a congressman, "still cashing paychecks until his colleagues throw him out -- at $1,800 a day; who can blame him?"
Cafferty said that one of his favorite things the Congress "pulled" this year was the appropriation of $20 million from the general treasury -- "they've already reached in and taken this money out of our pockets for a victory celebration for the war in Iraq. If they would put that money in a CD,  by the time we win that thing in Iraq, they could pay off the national debt."

Referring to Christian conservatives, who are the Republican base, Cafferty said, "They might not be so willing to vote Republican this time around. There's the Mark Foley scandal, of course, a Republican congressman hitting on teenage members of the page program, a real gem this clown. His disgusting behavior apparently well-known in Washington and yet the Republican leadership of the House chose to do nothing until Foley's behavior became public.
"And now comes an explosive new book by a former senior aide to President Bush named David Kuo. He talks about how members of Bush administration laughed at the evangelical Christians behind their backs, mocked them, all the while taking their money and their support. People in Karl Rove's office, according to the book, reportedly used to refer the evangelicals as the nuts."

On the broken borders issue, Cafferty said the government has done "virtually nothing" to stem the massive flow of illegal aliens into this country, mostly from Mexico. An estimated 3,000 a day cross into the United States, or about a million a year, they're already an estimated 12 million of them already here. "And yet the government looks the other way. Why? Because the corporations that own our government want it that way. They want the cheap labor, and the politicians want the Hispanic vote. You and I? We don't matter anymore on this issue. This single issue should be reason enough to vote every single incumbent out of office. It's a disgrace," Cafferty said.

"So the time's come," Cafferty said. "We own this place, not the career liars and weasels in Washington. We elect these people in good faith to go to Washington and look out for us. They have sold us out. They look in us in the eye. They lie to us day after day after day. They scurry around behind our backs. They take money from the lobbyists and the corporations, then they give that money away to their friends to buy stuff we don't need. The legislation they do get around to passing isn't for us. It's to benefit their contributors. And they think they're entitled to sit there and do this stuff forever. Well, enough already."

He suggested that if voters want to have some fun on Election Day, they should "go to the polls and vote against every incumbent on the ballot. Throw them all out. Think about it for a minute. No matter who we replace them with, how much worse could it be? And what a message it would send. You have one term to prove to us your worthy of representing us, or you're gone. It's not as far-fetched as it sounds."

-- CNN.com contributed to this report. The entire transcript of the Jack Cafferty program can be read at www.CNN.com/transcripts.

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