Democracy for Vancouver

The Representative from Washington’s Congressional District # 3 is a member of the Democratic Party who has backed George Bush on several matters of critical importance to U.S. citizens in general and progressives in particular: 1) support for the occupation of Iraq, and, especially, support for ‘the Surge’; 2) approval of the Peru Free-Trade Agreement in late 2007; and 3) an affirmative vote for the construction of 700 miles of fence/wall along the U.S. border with Mexico in 2006.

This update takes us to some more of Brian’s strange voting behavior. You may know that Baird voted for (yes, FOR) the FISA bill, complete with telecom immunity, three weeks ago. As in the case of ‘The Wall’, he voted with a minority of fellow Democrats. This latest sell-out rivals his support for the Iraq occupation for flakiness. Our boy has really lost his credibility now and should be rejected by Democratic Party voters in the upcoming primary election (August 19th). In case you don’t know, his opponent, Cheryl Crist – the true Democrat in the race, opposes the FISA bill including telecom immunity (of course). In other words Cheryl lines up with the majority – and with the best part – of the Democratic Party.

And, of course, there is still southwestern Asia – now with a twist. As I wrote previously, I have had two direct conversations with Brian where he has made the statement that, on his trips to the Middle East, officials in Egypt and Jordan have told him that the U.S. must stay in Iraq. He has made the same statement in various written documents and ‘town-hall’ meetings. Now he has organized a ‘bi-partisan’ caucus within the U.S. House of Representatives called the “Friends of Jordan” — the country, Jordan — the pseudo-democratic country wherein reside “officials” who have persuaded Brian Baird that the U.S. should stay in Iraq. What the hell is going on here? Friends of Jordan?

Just for comparison, I looked to see what other similar caucuses might exist in Congresscritterland. There’s Friends of Norway, Friends of Switzerland, Friends of Scotland, Friends of Ireland, Friends of Spain, Friends of New Zealand, Friends of Australia, and the Israel Allies Caucus. Seems fairly harmless, and at least these are all democracies to various degrees. Then there is a Friends of Thailand chartered by one William Jefferson, the Louisiana Congresscritter who was caught with his bribe money in his freezer. Doesn’t seem to have too many members for some reason. Now there’s Brian and his “Friends of Jordan” caucus – one other Democrat and two Republicans – ah, bipartisanship.

Maybe I’m a suspicious person, but the first thing that comes to my mind is that Brian is looking for a lobbying job after retirement from the U.S. Congress. There was a rumor this cycle that he might not run; and now there’s a rumor that he will retire after this term – assuming that he wins. If he doesn’t win, that gives him about 6 months to further ingratiate himself with the Jordanian power structure. It just rings too true in our current sell-out Congress.

His latest legislative endeavor – a bill to create that illusive health-care coverage for the masses – is another Baird classic. A bipartisan – the man does like to be bipartisan – health care insurance program to make sure that we pay insurance corporations a cost-plus-profit premium to insure the uninsured – via our taxes. Here, to be sure, he aligns with all of the current Democratic Party elite, all of whom apparently do not really understand the reasons that we taxpayers like the Social Security Insurance program. We might not like the small size of the benefit, but we like the fact that – except for the loans that it gives to our federal government to run its day-to-day business – it is a solvent program that does what it says it’s going to do for the benefit of almost all of us who work for a living in this country.

In what way does Brian’s bill move the health-care issue forward?

Look at Cheryl Crist, please. You’re going to find a lot to like. Www.cristforcongress.us