Big Sky Cairn

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed their yearly resolution honoring mothers and Mother’s Day. A noble gesture meant to signify the love and appreciation that all Americans feel toward the women who bore us. But this year’s resolution is wrapped in a little bit of controversy and a whole lot of distortion.

It started when the Washington Post’s Dana Millbank published a story entitled “Republican’s Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies and Kittens.” This article was then picked up by two of Montana’s lefty bloggers who used it’s finer points to argue that Montana Representative Denny Rehberg didn’t vote to support mothers. But their argument leaves a lot to be desired.

First off, the bill honoring Mother’s Day was H. Res. 1113. According to the Library of Congress, Rehberg voted for H. Res. 1113. In fact, the resolution passed 412-0. Which would suggest that every Member who voted, supported the Mother’s Day resolution.

So, where did the Montana bloggers and Millbank get the idea that House Republicans didn’t support the resolution? Because after the vote was complete, Rep. Tiahrt (R-Kans.) moved for a “motion to reconsider.” A motion supported by 178 House Republicans. But despite the motion’s name, Rehberg’s support for the motion doesn’t undo his support for the Mother’s Day resolution.

According to the House Rules Committee’s website, a motion to reconsider:

Under Rule XVIII, the motion to reconsider is available to any Member who votes on the prevailing side of a question and who wishes to move reconsideration on the same or succeeding legislative day. This normally only occurs when Members (usually Minority party Members) determine there is a need to slow down the legislative process.

So, why would Millbank and the lefty bloggers insinuate that this motion showed the Republicans disdain for mothers and Mother’s Day? Because it makes Rehberg sound like the Big Bad Wolf. Nevermind the fact that the motion to reconsider doesn’t change the fact that H. Res. 1113 passed unanimously.

Rehberg is on the record supporting Mother’s Day, as are 411 of his House Colleagues. His vote for the motion to reconsider doesn’t change that. But why let a little thing like the facts get in the way of a catchy headline?

In an effort to give Seventh String Hunt a fighting chance, Montana Democrats are going after Congressman Rehberg’s record in the House. In doing so, they appear to be willing to lie and distort the record at every turn.

First, they claimed that Rehberg is a puppet for President Bush, even though his voting record tells a different story.

Then they complained that he didn’t support an important and popular bill, even though he voted for it.

Now, Jack at Western Word points out that they are accusing him of not supporting the G.I. Bill even though he’s signed on as a cosponsor.

Of course, it did not take long for Montana Democrats to use veterans, once again, as a political tool. They sent out a “Demo Digest” e-mail telling folks that Rehberg did not support the bill “last year.” According to Senator Webb’s website, the bill in the House, H.R.5740, was only introduced in the House on April 9, 2008. Rehberg signed on as a co-sponsor April 24. Also, according to Senator Jim Webb’s website, the same bill in the senate, S-22, introduced on 01/04/07 was not co-sponsored by Senator Baucus until June 12, 2007, and by Senator Tester until March 22, 2007. So, it took Rehberg only 15 days to sign on as a co-sponsor of the bill, where it took Tester about 77 days and Baucus about 159 days.

Undoubtedly, Max Baucus’ army of campaign workers is digging through the thousands of votes looking for anything they can find to attack Rehberg. The best they can find so far, apparently, is that he doesn’t support the bills he votes for and cosponsors.

Attention Montana Democrats: Please stop lying to the people you hope to represent.

Heh…

Looks like the neighborhood is changing, and we just got here too. Craig over at MTPolitics has a guest blogger today, Denny Rehberg. The Congressman is showing his support for the Blogger Protection Act which protects the political speech of bloggers from FEC rules. Go check it out.

I laughed about Mary Ann Aker’s blog post at the Post. I mean, it was so insanely partisan and pointless that I’m not sure it wasn’t ghost-written by Montana Democrats. It’s hard to take such a clumsy piece seriously.

But past the ‘hit piece’ nature is an amusing human story. You can just see the poor campaign treasurer scrounging over receipts in a darkly lit office with a single lamp by which to work. He picks up his cup of warm coffee and grabs the next receipt. $300 for “Tune Inn” - no notations. Naturally he assumes that Tune Inn is an Inn where you sleep. Poor guy has probably never been to DC and wouldn’t really know that Tune Inn was a bar. Now his oversight is national news. Whoops.

As bars go though, this is the sort of Bar Montana’s Congressman should go to. Just look at this description.

There are eight mounted deer heads on the walls of the tiny Tune Inn — and, more important, two mounted deer butts. The butts are a lot more emblematic of this raucous neighborhood joint. The most popular thing on the menu is the pitcher of beer, just $5.50 (as long as you order Busch, not any of that yuppie stuff). During the day, the place specializes in workingman breakfasts and quick lunches. At night, if you feel like eating, the straightforward and cheap cheeseburger is the house specialty. Push through the loud throngs that mob the front of the place on weekend evenings and you may find a relatively peaceful booth in the back. An historical note: This is where James Carville and Mary Matalin went on their first date. They left quickly.

Sounds a bit like Stockmans in Missoula. They probably have peanuts. It’s things like this that make me wonder why Montana Democrats are trying to suggest that Rehberg is out of touch with Montana. He’s still Montana through and through - which is why the east-coast liberals like to make fun of him so much.

And where’s the contrast with Max Baucus? And a tab of $300 is a drop in the bucket compared with the $37,000 Max Baucus spent in three months on pretentious high-brow east coast restaurants. Think there’s not a difference?

Cheers to Rehberg for keeping it real.

Cheers to Jay for getting the humor.

Jeers to Lamnidae for being lamely partisan.

Jeers to the Washington Post for paying a Democrat Party Hack’s salary.

Another day, another inaccurate description of the Rehberg-SCHIP affair.

Jay links to a timeline over at Kos (I will not link to that site, ever) stating Rehberg wrote his op-ed on August 10, 2007. Not really a huge issue other than the editorial was published August 3rd in Billings, and is dated August 1 on his website. This of course means Rehberg wrote the op-ed concurrently with his vote, not afterwards.

Not that I expect Kossacks to have an understanding of the Eastern Montana mentality, but the author misses by a wide margin about what happened in Sidney. From my own experiences, and what was published, the lady at the meeting was mad at Denny for opposing the President on SCHIP. Kinda goes against the whole rubber stamp meme doesn’t it?

Lamnidae has recently graduated from commenting to, well, gad-flying with her own little corner of cyberspace. So far the transition hasn’t gone too smoothly but being new ourselves I guess we can forgive a bit of a learning curve.

For one, Brad points out that she needs to source her claims - like that Erik Iverson (diabolical puppet-master) is the highest paid staffer in the House of Representatives. This would be a little easier to accept if, well, the salary she claimed he received weren’t impossible. She seems to be posting from the new jhwygirl / Jay Stevens school of argumentation: “there’s no proof against it so it must be true.”

Most recently though, is an entertainingly clumsy attempt to go after Rehberg for supporting a policy that he says is popular in Montana. Egads! “Elected Representative uses constituents opinion as justification for policy position.” I sure hope the press doesn’t get ahold of this unpinned grenade! If this breaks, I don’t even want to imagine the shock waves that will reverberate through the Republican establishment.

Oh and Lamninate also makes fun of my name while calling Roy Brown a monkey and Jack the Blogger a goofball. I guess she wants to play full contact.

Welcome to the blogs honey. Looks like you’ve learned your name-calling from Wulfgar and your argumentation style from Jay. You should fit right into the evolving irrelevance that has lately settled over Sinestra.

Cody beat me to the punch on Jay’s latest bout of misrepresentation. Here are a couple random thoughts that I would add;

“Montana kids deserve to have their healthcare needs addressed. However, the House Democrat bill has made the welfare of our children a political issue based on a narrow, extremist political ideology”

Compare that quote to this; “based on an ‘extremist political ideology’ to expand government-run health care.” Hmm, one has to wonder where Jay got the end-bit he is putting in quotes, inferring it was part of the original, which it demonstrably is not. Also removed is all context that the use of kids as political pawns is the source of the extremist ideology line.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s always possible that what informed people take as lies are really just the uninformed rantings of political sheep. Jay Stevens finds himself between a rock and a hard place: he is either a liar or he just has no clue what he is talking about. Supposing he was a liar, of course, would be crediting him with being able to see through the cloud of B.S. that Montana Democrats lay down and he doesn’t have a very strong track record with that.

What’s leading me to think that maybe Jay Stevens may not be lying and may be merely demonstrating his clueless constitution instead?

Read the rest of this entry »

Back before Big Sky Cairn was even a twinkle in my eye, when the “Dextrasphere” was still new and growing, conservative blogs in Montana faced a bout of dishonesty amongst their own. A blog called Montana Pundit was correctly accused of plagiarism by Shane Mason. They way conservatives bloggers responded when it became clear that they were being lied to by Hagen was one of the reasons I eventually decided to throw myself in with their lot. The infant Dextrasphere responded by removing the site from their Dextra feed and disavowing the author - even though he was “one of their own.” Integrity, for them, rose above partisan loyalty. The Dextra policed its own and Montana Pundit is now an internet ghost town.

I want to pose a question for the left-leaning blogs in Montana: What role do you believe that integrity plays in blogging and what measures are you willing to take to preserve it? Are you willing to castigate one of your own for lying?

The subject I’m about to breech has already been discussed by Missoulapolis, Rabid Sanity and Electric City Weblog but I’m interested in what, if any, response this situation invokes from the left-leaning blogs. How dearly do you hold the integrity of your associations?

Jay Stevens at Left in the West is perpetuating a lie. Read the rest of this entry »