Effective Congressmen

The complaint has been raised that Bill Sali isn’t effective as a Congressman, most recently by Mountain Goat Report:

Idaho’s First District Congressman Bill Sali continues his quest to embed himself with the tiniest of minorities. This time he’s voted with 19 others against a bill that would authorize support of science and engineering researchers.

Mountain Goat Report shows us the numbers, gives us no clue as to what the opponents arguments were against the bill, but give us an implication that being on the “wrong side” of a 397-20 vote indicates Bill Sali is wrong. In fact that Bill Sali is just willy nilly voting against bills because he’s “anti-science.” Did MGR call Sali’s office and ask? Get a statement he could respond to? No, just filed a charge to attack Bill Sali.

The assumption here is that successful Congressmen are never on the losing side of lop-sided votes. Of course, that’s not true. Mike Pence, one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress voted against the same bill.

How does one define an effective Congressman? Is it someone like Robert Byrd or Ted Stevens who’ve created our nation’s fiscal crisis with their massive egocentric overspending? They bring home the bacon, but grandkids get stuck paying the bill. Is it someone who passes big impressive government programs which end up doing more harm than good? No.

As I see it, the folks of Idaho’s 1st District msde a choice for someone who represented their values. Not the values of Seattle, the Bay Area, or Maryland, but Idaho values. In the current Democrat Congress, those values are not popular. Does that mean we surrender who we are and what we believe for some pork? Will we sell our souls to gain fool’s gold that kids and grandkids will have to pay for? Idaho said no.

They elected someone who would stand firm against the tides of statism and liberalism. They elected Bill Sali to represent their values whether they’re popular or not. It’s tough getting anywhere as a freshman in the minority party, but I don’t believe either status will last forever. I believe he’s got grit and determination mixed with a good style that will serve him well in the long run. Yes, some folks in Idaho’s political establishment didn’t like him because of inconvenient dedication to principle. But had we had 220 or so members of Congress like him for the past few years, I can safely say we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today, and only by electing more men of his caliber can we hope to make our way back.

Sali: We Must Not Fail

Congressman Bill Sali rose to the floor of the U.S. and delivered the following speech (courtesy of the Mountain Goat Report):

First is, it is stunning to me that this body will consume over 36 hours of floor debate on a nonbinding resolution. This should be on the consent calendar. Irrespective of one’s position on the war in Iraq, all taxpayers are right to be incensed at such waste in this Congress.

This legislation will not have the effect of law, will neither inspire nor impede military action in Iraq or elsewhere, will not encourage our troops on the ground nor foster victory over America’s enemies that practice terror. It will have one effect: poking the President of the United States in the eye, diminishing his credibility among the international community and eroding his ability to lead here at home. It will also have the very genuine result of undermining and demoralizing our soldiers that are now in harm’s way.

Second, equally stunning is the apparent preoccupation with demeaning President Bush while ignoring those who are our real enemies. Our enemies are not in the White House or the Defense Department. They are not people like David Petraeus or his staff. They are not the vast majority of Muslims throughout the world, who, like us, want simply to live peaceful and secure lives.

America’s enemies are radical Islamists, less than 1 percent of all Muslims, whose faith requires that a pure Islamic state be established and that violence is the instrument by which to establish it. Their faith requires terrorist acts against the West and all Muslims who stand in the way of that agenda.

That is why Osama bin Laden can say that he and his followers are ‘‘in love with death.’’ Indiscriminate slaughter is, for these sick people, merely a tool in their arsenal of moral barbarity.

That is why his second-in-command has declared that Iraq and Afghanistan are
‘‘the two most crucial fields’’ in their war. That is why al Qaeda in Iraq has declared an Islamic state in Iraq’s Anbar Province.

Third, how do America’s enemies view us? For one thing, they fear George W. Bush and our military. That is why Libya’s Mu’ammar Qadhafi 3 years ago surrendered his nuclear materials to the U.S. That is why Moqtada al-Sadr, Iraq’s most powerful militia leader, just made a beeline for Iran; not for a sunny vacation from long, tiresome days of planning suicide bombings, but because he feared for his life.

But America’s enemies view Congress quite differently. They see us as divided,irresolute, unwilling to face honestly their concerted plan for our destruction. Hence, this nonbinding resolution.

In light of this reality, I would ask my friends across the aisle, what is your binding plan for defeating America’s enemies? America, our allies and our enemies are still waiting for your binding plan.

More than 3,000 Americans have died upholding the hope of defeating America’s real enemies and bringing freedom to Iraq. We must not allow their deaths to become a pretext for the abandonment of that hope of victory or abandoning the Iraqi people. But rather, they must serve as the inspiration of a renewed commitment to hope of victory and security for Iraq. We owe to their heroism and sacrifice nothing less than one thing, victory over America’s enemies in Iraq.

America is the last best hope of man on Earth. A victory in Iraq is our last best hope of defeat of America’s most dangerous enemies and also the freedom and security in the Middle East. We must not fail.

Bill Sali fights Justice Department Laziness

This is a new feature on the blog. In order to combat the relentless liberal assault on Rep. Bill Sali (R-Idaho), I’m going to take time to talk about some of what Sali’s doing the the Idaho liberal press doesn’t want to report.

Last week, Congressman Sali joined with 17 other Congressmen in signing a letter demanding that the Justice Department conduct a polygraph of former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger (which had been agreed to as part of Berger’s plea agreement.) For those unfamiliar with the case, Sandy Berger stole several classified documents from the National Archives:

The report from the inspector-general for the National Archives, Paul Brachfeld, said Mr. Berger executed the cloak-and-dagger maneuver in October 2003 while taking a break from reviewing Clinton-era documents in connection with the work of the so-called September 11 commission.

” Mr. Berger exited the archive onto Pennsylvania Avenue,” the report says, recounting the story the former national security chief told investigators. “He did not want to run the risk of bringing the documents back in the building. … He headed toward a construction area on 9th Street. Mr. Berger looked up and down the street, up into the windows of the archives and the DOJ, and did not see anyone. He removed the documents from his pockets, folded the notes in a ‘V’ shape, and inserted the documents in the center. He walked inside the construction fence and slid the documents under a trailer.”

According to the report, Mr. Berger said he retrieved the documents after leaving the archives complex for the evening and took the papers to his office. It is not clear how long the documents were unattended at the construction site, but the report suggests it was a few hours, at most.

The former national security chief said he cut three documents up in his office and discarded them in the trash. Mr. Berger returned two other documents after archivists notified him that some records were missing, but his efforts to retrieve the others from the trash collector were unsuccessful.

He left classified documents unattended under a trailer, but the situation gets worse according to Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.):

In October, Mr. Davis led an effort to hold hearings to determine whether any documents were “destroyed, removed or were missing” after visits by Mr. Berger to the Archives. He said the full extent of Mr. Berger’s document removal “can never be known” and the Justice Department could not assure the September 11 commission that it received all the documents to which Mr. Berger had access.

We need the truth and Congressman Sali is doing what it takes to insure we get it.