Ya know I think every male in America has had at one time or another a James Bond fantasy about sneaking into the villan’s lair to hear his plans.  I gotta tell ya the reality is not quite that much fun, lemme tell ya, Halle Berry was nowhere to be found!. but there were a couple of guys who reminded me of Ernst Stavro Blofeld.  

I wanted to hear what Bill Shuster (R PA09) was telling the GOP faithful so I went.  In a very small dining room in a restaurant in Bedford, I paid my fee.  Twenty bucks for a tray of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage and tater tots.  I had expected much more from a republican Breakfast, even the coffee was sour.  Of course, that could have been because I was out numbered 60 to one with no clear path to the door and to be honest I just felt unclean being there.

What I noticed first was the parking lot.  I’ve been to many Democratic events and I usually see a plethora of bumper stickers but at this breakfast, they were few and far between.  It makes me wonder just how red is Bedford?  The other attendees were mostly bankers and business people and the talk was the usual chamber of commerce chit chat about this project and that deal.  It was not a political crowd per se.  Just business people who undoubtedly only wanted to be sure that they would get some bacon coming their way, and I don’t mean from breakfast.

Going to a political function for the food, is little bit like going to wall mart for clothes, you’ll be able to find something but it won’t be what you might call high quality stuff, to be honest I did expect a little more for my twenty bucks than what I got, even the coffee sucked.  I guess the staff at the restaurant understood what will happen to them if the Republicans get their “Paris Hilton tax relief and oh yeah here’s a crumb to minimum wage workers bill” passed.

Mr. Shuster did trumpet the elimination of estate taxes like it was something to be proud of but I didn’t think anyone in that room would care as you have to have what? $5 mil to qualify for the exemption.  Nobody in the room had that kinda bread, believe me.

Overall, The Congressman’s tone was defensive and nervous.  He distanced himself from the president as much as he could despite an 84% voting record, but not too far so as not to offend the Bush faithful.  For a guy who, according to all the pundits will win in a walk, he was way too stage managed to seem confident.  I think that maybe the small turnout, the plethora of letters to the editor demanding debate in the newspapers and the other signals of Democratic Challenger Tony Barr’s momentum is getting to him.  (Find out more at http://www.tonybarr2006.com)

Mainly, the talk was of the war.  Congressman Shuster repeated the rhetoric of his constituent e-mails to say that Iraqi forces will take over 90% of  security duties by the end of the year.  Shuster’s was contradicting the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace’s testimony before the Senate yesterday, stating that Iraq was one  dirty look away from all out civil war.

“We’ve gotta go what we’ve gotta do” to make Amerca Safe, Shuster said.  Is the way we’re doing what we gotta do making America safer?  I think not.

Playing to the worst instincts in the assembled crowd, Shuster then went on to say that a bio-metric card should issued to legal immigrants so that we can manage the immigration problem more effectively.  Why not just tattoo a number on their forearms?  He then went on to repeat the Republican House’s call for a wall to be built along the Mexican border.  Will we build one on the Canadian border too? Those Canucks can be pretty pesky.  An American iron curtain is just what this country needs, isn’t it?  

He also echoed the “No Amnesty!” cry so often heard in the Immigration debate.  Does Bill Shuster really think someone who has worked in this country for ten years is going to go back to Mexico and get in line to apply to get back in?

Despite the fact that some 46 million Americans have no health insurance, The Congressman called our health system “the best in the world”.  Congress does have a pretty good health plan, too bad the rest of us are on our own.
At some point Bill Shuster nervously admitted that all was not well with the state of the Federal budget.  For this state of affairs, he mostly blamed the Senate, I guess Rick Santorum isn’t doing his job, either.  Sticking to GOP talking points, he stated that despite The post-Katrina situation on the Gulf Coast, (Which the Government still apparently has no plan for “We still don’t know what to do, he said”) and the War, now costing over  $700 Billion  and the Republican insistence on Tax breaks for the Wealthiest 1% of Americans, that the deficit will be cut in half in just four years.  Hey, weren’t we running at a budget surplus in the year 2000?

To achieve this seemingly impossible feat, the Congressman said that controlling discretionary spending and entitlements was the economic tonic that would make us all better again.  He also complained bitterly about the fact that the country rejected the Bush gutting of Social Security in favor of private accounts.  It was all I could to do to keep from puking.

There were 5×7 cards and pens on every table and Mr Shuster did take “questions” but I never saw anybody writing anything.  The”questions” themselves were suspiciously worded as if they had been written by staff members.  They made a big show of letting a 16 year old kid ask questions but one look in that kid’s eye and you know that there was NO WAY that kid asked THAT question.  Somehow my question, “It was reported in the Altoona Mirror that you were considering debates with the Democratic candidate, will there be debates?” never quite made it to the podium and I would have asked aloud but I was out numbered 60 to 1 and while my back was to the wall, I had no clear path to the door and, okay, I’ll admit it I pussed out.

I drove home, had a shower, I just felt so dirty, and began to blog.

Anyway, That’s who were running against.  To find out more:
http://www.tonybarr2006.com

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