Security risks

Yesterday I came across a newly-released voting scorecard put out by the Center for Security Policy, one that grades everyone in Congress on certain votes during the 110th Congress that’s just wrapping up now. While the presentation leaves something to be desired, the important part is how our local representatives in Washington scored. That also left something to be desired.

Actually, the issue I have with Frank Gaffney’s group is their scoring method because a person who came into office midway through the term can’t get a very high score based on the total number of votes overall (either 23 or 24, depending on body.) If I only had the opportunity to participate in five votes because I assumed office midstream I’d only have a rating in the 20’s even if I voted their way. (That’s why I have a different method for my monoblogue accountability scorecard which divides the votes proportionally. I would base the overall score on fewer votes if a member joined up late; however, this has yet to happen in 3 sessions.)

Regardless, of all the full-term House members our own Wayne Gilchrest was the second-lowest Republican rated with a score of just 35 percent. (Ron Paul had just 18 percent but did not vote on 13 occasions.) For our Delaware friends, Mike Castle was in a group of three who were tied for the third-lowest mark among full-term Republicans, scoring a somewhat more respectable 54 percent. However, the vast majority of Republicans were in the eighties and nineties, conversely most Democrats had scores under 20. That group naturally included two of the Senators representing Maryland and Delaware, as both Ben Cardin and Joe Biden scored a big fat zero on their cards. Somewhat better were Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski (33%) and Delaware’s Tom Carper, who managed a score of 44.

This is yet another reason I believe Andy Harris should take over Wayne Gilchrest’s Congressional seat. It’s almost certain that Harris would have a score comparable to most other GOP House members who take national security seriously. (In this case, many of the votes were related to Iraq but others were on border security and missile defense funding.) Frank Kratovil may score better than average for a Democrat but I don’t find a 35% score acceptable and I doubt the voters in the First District would either. (My score would have been 96 based on the brief descriptions given, the only vote which I would have been against Gaffney’s group on would have been REAL ID funding.)

I particularly liked the Pearce Amendment:

The Pearce (NM-2) amendment sought to remove $10 million in funding for energy conservation on military installations and increase funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program by $10 million.

The mission of the military (and I learned this from listening to Rush Limbaugh, although I believe he was actually quoting someone else – that’s a reference just to annoy my friends on the left some more) is “to kill people and break things,” not to promote energy conservation.

While I know at least some of my readers don’t like Gaffney because he falls into the neocon classification, he does have some expertise in the field of national security and should be taken seriously. (Conversely, I’m not too crazy about his continuing effort to mandate flex-fueled cars, something I’ve written about previously.) This effort is good for discussion purposes because, even though the economy has taken front and center position amongst key 2008 election issues, national security can’t be placed too far onto the back burner.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

One thought on “Security risks”

  1. On top of his neocon problems Frank Gaffney is also a racist tool that pointlessly promotes anti-Islam hate and conspiracy theories. It makes it hard to take him seriously on most things.

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