I will occasionally tune in to C-Span to see what tragi-comedy is being played out on the floor of (and it’s usually) the House of Representatives. So it shouldn’t have surprised me to see one of Tennessee’s own, Zach Wamp (R-Chattanooga), make an appearance on the floor of the House during the recent “debates” about whether the U.S. should “cut and run” or “stay the course,”to utter two amazing statements. The first was an echo of what, by the time Wamp uttered it, had already been a thoroughly discredited statement by Senator Santorum, namely that WMD’s had suddenly been discovered in Iraq.
The ridiculousness of Santorum’s eureka moment was established by, of all sources, Fox News, which was told by the Defense Department that Santorum’s “WMD’s” were “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.” Not willing to let facts interfere with fantasy, Santorum stuck to his story, and found a witting shill in his House counterpart, Mr. Wamp, who reported on the re-discovery of Sarin gas in his floor statement.
Never mind that the gas they referred to was so old and so degraded the only thing it would do to anyone who came in contact with it was give them the equivalent of a sunburn, or that David Kay, the man in charge of finding WMD’s in Iraq characterized the Santorum “cache” as being “less toxic than most things people have under their kitchen sink.”
Ideologues like Santorum and Wamp never let facts get in the way of their agendas.
As another example of that fact blindness, Wamp also made the following statement:
You cannot convince me that there were not connections with al Qaeda operatives and Saddam Hussein.
Well, at least he‛s honest. Don‛t bother him with facts. Don‛t bother him with admissions by the Bush administration that there was no such connection, or with the determination by the 9/11 Commission that there was no such connection. Zach Wamp knows better. People like Wamp never let reality intrude on their fantasies. I‛ll bet Wamp still believes there is actually a tooth fairy and an Easter bunny.
But the even more bizarre statement came from Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who weighed in right after Wamp (after paying tribute to Wamp‛s statement, which he called a “gem”). What he said was:
…they [the U.S. military in Iraq]
are an all-volunteer service. And not
only that, they are people that have all
volunteered for this conflict, because
this conflict has gone on long enough
that everyone had a chance to re up.
So everybody that is in uniform got to
consider the current state of conflict
globally, and they signed back up again
in numbers far larger than ever anticipated.
They said, I am going back for a second
tour, I will go back for a third
tour, I will put my life on the line, and
I will certainly put it on hold for a
year or more to give the Iraqi people a
chance at freedom.
Hello! Earth to Congressman King. What rock were you hiding under when something called “stop loss” was loudly trumpeted? Are you really oblivious to the fact that, far from “re-upping,” tens of thousands of our troops who were, if you‛ll excuse the expression, dying to come home, were instead reduced to indentured servitude because the military (surprise, surprise), contrary to your glowing paean to successful recruitment couldn‛t meet its recruitment goals? Have you heard of the thousands of National Guard and Reserve troops who found themselves in Iraq when what they thought they‛d be doing (and what they were desperately needed for) was helping out in floods and other disasters stateside.
Sadly, these kinds of irresponsible statements are made on the floor of the House (and yes, the Senate too) every day those august bodies are in session (which should make us thankful they‛re in session so infrequently), with little immediate consequence for the cretins who utter them. With any luck, though, Messrs. Wamp‛s and King‛s (among others‛) accountability moment will come on November 7, 2006.
BIOGRAPHY:“Gadfly” is Marty Aussenberg, an attorney practicing law in his own firm in Memphis, Tennessee, who intends to keep practicing until he gets it right. He began his career in the private practice of law in Memphis after relocating from Washington, D.C., where he spent five years at the Securities and Exchange Commission as a Special Counsel and Trial Attorney in its Enforcement Division, during which time he handled or supervised the investigation and litigation of several significant cases involving insider trading, market manipulation, and management fraud. Prior to his stint at the S.E.C., he was an Assistant Attorney General with the Pennsylvania Department of Banking in Philadelphia and was the Attorney-In-Charge of Litigation for the Pennsylvania Securities Commission, where, in addition to representing that agency in numerous state trial and appellate courts, he successfully prosecuted the first case of criminal securities fraud in the state’s history.
Mr. Aussenberg’s private practice has focused primarily on investment, financial, corporate and business counseling, litigation and arbitration and regulatory proceedings. He has represented individual, institutional and governmental investors, as well as brokerage firms and individual brokers, in securities and commodities-related matters, S.E.C., NASD and state securities regulatory proceedings, and has represented parties in shareholder derivative, class action and multi-district litigation, as well as defending parties in securities, commodities, and other “white-collar” criminal cases.
Mr. Aussenberg received his J.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and his B.A. degree in Honors Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh. Immediately following law school, he served as a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellow with the Delaware County Legal Assistance Association in Chester, Pennsylvania.
He is admitted to practice in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, before the United States Supreme Court, the Third and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the United States Tax Court, as well as federal district courts in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. He has served as an arbitrator for the NASD, New York Stock Exchange and American Arbitration Association, has published several articles on stockbroker fraud, and has been a featured speaker at seminars in the United States and Canada.
Mr. Aussenberg is an avid golfer whose only handicap is his game, an occasional trap shooter whose best competitive score was a 92, and an even less frequent jazz drummer.
