Let's Give Pitts "Serious" Competition

I’m finding out some interesting stuff about Joe Pitts, the U.S. House representative from the 16th PA Congressional district running to retain his seat against Lois Herr.

According to this Source Watch article...

Pitts was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996. Pitts hasn't had serious electoral competition and he announced that he's abandoning his pledge to serve only five terms in the House of Representatives.

I don’t know where the quote about “serious electoral competition” came from; I haven’t been able to find an attribution for it. However, I should point out that the former U.S. Congressional representative in our district, Jim Greenwood, also broke a self-imposed promise to limit his term in office before he eventually left for a job as a lobbyist for the pharma industry, and he was roundly blasted for it, which was appropriate.

I also came across this item about Joe’s opinion of the video game industry (as the blogger noted, it tells you something about Repug congressional priorities that they found time to address this but not bother to follow up on Rep. Louise Slaughter’s recommendation for a modern-day Truman Commission to investigate military contractor fraud in Iraq).

See, Joe believes that the “good” kids (you know, the ones with mommy and daddy’s money in the McMansions of Lancaster County) will be able to resist the violence of video games like “Grand Theft Auto,” but those baaaad kids from “the city” (re, minorities – primarily black – in Philadelphia, for Joe’s purposes) won’t be able to because the video game will reflect a way of life they know anyway.

It’s difficult for me to contemplate how truly asinine that argument is without requiring Ibuprofen.

Before this election, the only time I could recall hearing anything about Pitts was during the fracas over the court order requiring the removal of the Ten Commandments from the Chester County, PA courthouse. I can see the legal rationale, but I know more than a little bit about the mindset of the people who live out there, and Pitts reflected some of his constituency when he reacted to that decision as if someone was about to stick his testicles in the microwave (thus drumming up support for something called the Ten Commandments Defense Act...I'm sure Charlton Heston and the estate of Cecil B. DeMille were cosponsors).

Hey, you want the Ten Commandments posted outside your courthouse in violation of the spirit of separation of church and state? Go knock yourselves out. I think you’re wrong, but I’ve got other battles to fight, thank you very much.

That wasn’t enough for Pitts, though; I mean, he wouldn’t be doing his job as a Repug if he didn’t take the occasion to pander once more to “the base,” stating that “some on the left are determined to remove any and all references to religion from public life.”

Bravo, Joe. Go see Karl Rove for your gold star and a stack of untraceable cash.

With all of this in mind, let’s give Lois Herr a great big helping hand and try our best to rid the 16th district of this Republican pestilence.

Seriously.