Congresswoman Kristi Noem is coming to town. I should be nice....
Congresswoman Kristi Noem has brought us another week of do-nothing incompetence and Newspeak. She sent out a glossy, self-promoting flyer on the taxpayer's dollar, exactly the kind of campaign-style mailing she promised she wouldn't send with her franking power. She let her interns recycle the "Obama lacks specifics" talking point on her Twitter account hot on the heels of her inexplicable failure to explain the specifics of budget cuts she has already voted for.
Then in this week's teleconference with South Dakota reporters, Rep. Noem was asked about her proudest accomplishment in her first 100 days.
Rep. Kristi Noem said working to block the health-care law enacted in 2010 is her proudest moment during her first 100 days in office.
"I'd say probably the greatest accomplishment was repealing "˜Obamacare' on the House floor," said Noem, R-S.D., when asked during a teleconference with South Dakota journalists Thursday to list her top accomplishment [Tom Lawrence, "Noem: Vote to Repeal Health-care Law Proudest Accomplishment So Far," Mitchell Daily Republic, 2011.04.14].
Because Congresswoman Noem is this slow, I cite the dictionary:
accomplish: to bring to [an object's] goal or conclusion; carry out; perform; finish: to accomplish one's mission.
accomplish: To bring to an issue of full success; to effect; to perform; to execute fully; to fulfill; as, to accomplish a design, an object, a promise: "This that is written must yet be accomplished in me" —Luke 22:37
Asked to cite her greatest accomplishment in 100 days of representing the people of South Dakota in Congress, asked to name the biggest goal she has carried out, executed fully, brought to full success, Congresswoman Kristi Noem cites a vote that achieved nothing:
While the Republican-controlled House voted to overturn the health-care law, the repeal was rejected in the Senate. If it had passed there, President Obama had pledged to veto it.
"Even though the Senate did not take up that bill, did not pass it, we're still working on it, and we're going to continue to work to defund that bill and to repeal it and that's still one of the provisions that's still being considered," Noem said [Lawrence, 2011.04.14].
Accomplishment, Kristi. It means you actually did something, actually made a difference in how your constituents live. All your House vote did was give you another Fox News appearance to post on your YouTube scrapbook.
In this same press conference, Rep. Noem also cheered the new House rule that all legislation be posted publicly at least three days before the House votes on it, almost immediately after voting for the final FY2011 budget resolution, enormously important legislation which the House leadership made publicly available for only two days before the vote.
Speaking of non-accomplishment and the budget deal, Rep. Noem said something on Fox News about not compromising, fighting for the biggest cuts possible. She grumbled that she wanted more cuts than $38 billion, but that there would be more opportunities to cut later.
More cuts? Try any cuts. Rep. Noem and Speaker Boehner brought us the brink of a government shutdown and shook investor confidence to achieve not $38 billion but $350 million in real budget cuts this year. The only "cuts" reaching billion-dollar levels are wishful fantasies about future spending, which are entirely at the mercy of future Congressional votes and not at all bound by what Rep. Noem voted for Thursday.
Kristi's advertised cuts of $38 billion were barely one percent of this year's original proposed federal budget. $350 million in real cuts is less than one percent of that one percent. Write it as a decimal: Congresswoman Kristi Noem differs from President Obama and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi on the 2011 budget by a factor of 0.0001.
If all of the above non-achievement didn't cement Noem's status as a single-term Representative, her vote yesterday to privatize Medicare did. In voting for Rep. Paul Ryan's destructive FY2012 budget, Congresswoman Kristi Noem did exactly what Stephanie Herseth Sandlin last year said Noem would do and exactly what candidate Noem obfuscatorily pretended she wouldn't. Congresswoman Noem also apparently forgot that she was elected by lots of people who spent 2009 shouting at Democrats to not to touch their Medicare.
Noem's only hope is to play Paul Ryan's cowardly swindle and note that she's not taking Medicare from anyone who has it; she's only privatizing (i.e., rendering useless, destroying) Medicare for all of us under 55. (Tell Josh to start writing the response now, Kristi: I am going to say "free-market death panels" often and with relish.)
No major accomplishments, no immediate budget cuts, no Medicare for future senior citizens: that's Kristi Noem. Jeff Barth picked a good week to say he may challenge Noem for her seat, but if Kristi keeps crapping out like this, he may have to fight a big crowd for the pleasure of being our next Representative.
Bonus Fiscal Note: To Kristi's credit, by flip-flopping back to supporting Ryan's sick joke of a budget, she did vote to cut $30 billion from farm subsidies over the next ten years. In an interesting numerical coincidence, her family has collected 0.0001 of that amount in farm subsidies over the last fifteen years.
Bonus Video (first drawn to my attention by Mr. Feser): Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) encapsulates the Noem-GOP do-nothingness in this brilliant "speech" from the floor of the House of Representatives on April 14, 2011:
Noem is merely working in the great tradition of fecklessness established by John Thune. While a congressman, his major activity was to say no to infrastructure. He did not belong to any agricultural caucuses which study and keep congress people apprised of what is going on in the farm world nor did he have any interest in water development. I am not sure what he has done in the Senate except raise a stink about the EPA regulating cow farts, which it never intended to do.
These two have both been labeled as "rising stars." Ultimately one has to give credit where credit is due: the voters.
Ok, now you guys are lobbing softballs. It's is if to say that Rep. Noem is really just a Mailer Inexplicably Legislating Fecklessness.
David, I was wondering if we had an example of a previous occupant of South Dakota's House seat who showed this level of incompetence. He wasn't this inconsistent and bumbling at the mic, was he?
Larry, I will admit, to say in four words what takes me four paragraphs takes some talent. :-)
@Larry - not funny. Attempt to "Stay Above The Line"!
Think of it as foreplay.