Sensenbrenner: Lying with impunity

Xoff beat me to the punch on Sensenbrenner's continued abuse of taxpayer money through "junkets." (Aside: If F. Jim is so big on not wasting taxpayers' money for things like hurricane relief, why is he ok with traveling on our dime?) So I'll pick up on a tip from a reader instead.

I heven't spent a lot of time following F. Jim's press releases, but once you get into them, you can find them riddled with lies--lies no one in the Milwaukee-area press seems to be calling him on. For example, from May:

Over the past several months, organized anti-war protests have taken place around the country, including in Wisconsin, at the funerals of servicemen and women killed while fighting in the war against terrorism. These extremist demonstrators harass family members and friends with chants and signs that read, ‘Thank God for dead soldiers,’ ‘God hates you,’ and ‘Thank God for IEDs.’ This behavior is revolting and deeply disrespectful.

Whatever your political persuasion, or stance on the War on Terror, I think we all can agree that family members and friends should be protected during military funerals. [. . .] As a result, I, along with over 100 Republican and Democrat House Members, cosponsored HR 5037, the Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act. The bill would prohibit demonstrations on national cemetery grounds, unless specifically approved, and would silence all demonstrations one hour before and one hour following a military memorial service within a 500-foot radius.

Lies. Sensenbrenner clearly labels the protesters targeted here as "anti-war," and with his reference to "political persuasion," implies that said protesters are liberal. This is not true: The resolution came about as a direct result of protests at military funerals by Fred Phelps, an ultra-conservative who is not anti-war, but anti-gay, and feels that the US deserves to have its servicemembers die beczuse of our liberal policies regarding homsexuality in this country. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covered Phelps when he brought his circus to Wisconsin, and if F. Jim had bothered to read the paper, he'd know that the protests are not anti-war or liberal in nature.

The New York Times ran an op-ed just this week (behind their stupid subscription wall) in which the writer claimed that liberal anti-war protesters were disrupting military funerals. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) investigated and found that, in fact, it was all Phelps's group, not liberals.

Google all you want; you will not find that liberals--or anyone anti-war--are protesting military funerals.

(Tip on that one from Green opponent to F. Jim, Bob Levis.)

One example ought to be enough, but there's more. This release, for example, lies about what's in the Senate immigration bill. My favorite is possibly this one, which may not be a lie, but is certainly dripping with irony:

The National Taxpayers Union (NTU), an independent tax watchdog group, has awarded Menomonee Falls Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner the ‘Taxpayers’ Friend Award’ for 2005 because of his voting record to reduce and control the tax burden on American taxpayers. Congressman Sensenbrenner, the only Member of the Wisconsin delegation to get an ‘A,’ received the ninth highest score in the House of Representatives. [. . .]

“Ultimately, this is the taxpayers’ money we’re talking about and we’re the ones entrusted to spend it responsibly,” Sensenbrenner concluded.

Who is it being irresponsible with taxpayers' money again?

McIlheran Watch: Even when he's right, he's so, so wrong

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel op-edist Patrick McIlheran doesn't make a habit of it, but occasionally he comes down on the right side of an issue. Today, for example, when faced with choosing between the "God Hates Fags" crowd and the families of soldiers, even he can't help but see the light.

Fred Phelps--he of the Westboro Baptist Church and the kind of viscious hate that would make a Klansman blush under his hood--was in Wisconsin last week to protest at the funeral of a Fox Lake National Guardsman killed in Iraq. He and his brainwashed followers somehow have it in their heads that our soldiers are dying to protect a nation of heathens. So whereas they used to travel the country protesting anything gay-postive, they now protest the funerals of those who died in service of our country.

And Pat Mac recognizes that this is, as he puts it, noxious.

But even when he's right, McIlheran manages to include his regular bugaboos--namely, peaceniks and Ted Kennedy:

It is often said that we suffer from incivility fostered by the rise of talk radio and blogs. [Ed.: What is it with this newspaper and blogs? Is this a shot at me?] Yet an equal case could be made that our public life has grown rude as people took to heart the older impulse to speak out. The more direct antecedents of Phelps' "God hates fags" signs are the protest signs saying unheard-of things about Nixon. And all of it is enabled by a feeling that the world is improved when crude feelings are expressed crudely.

It's not just that a polite society's more pleasant. It is that it permits disagreement. When a senator refers to another as "the distinguished gentleman" rather than the more sincere, "the obese drunkard," conversation may still ensue since the obese drunkard, having heard no fighting words, can pretend at peace.

And he had been doing so well up to that point! But then he slipped into his pattern--a bad joke, a misstatement of fact, and Republican spin. I could just as easily trace incivility, especially in the Senate, to, say, Joe McCarthy. Or that one guy 200 years ago who hit that other guy with a cane.

It is noxious to me that in this week of Alito hearings (featuring Ted Kennedy) and another Bush plea for "responsible" (i.e., not disagreeing with him) debate over Iraq, McIlheran uses a cause for real moral outrage--the Fred Phelps travesty--to push the Republican agenda. (And I haven't even talked about the part of the op-ed where he pimps the "ex-gay" movement!)

I don't know why I thought McIlheran would have stopped while he was ahead; he never does. It is right to be outraged at Fred Phelps; indeed, it is inhuman not to be. But it is wrong to use that outrage for base politics--that is the sort of thing that really does cheapen our discourse.

(See robola for his take, too.)