The Democrat Party – how long and loudly has it touted its role as the refuge of the minorities, the beacon of tolerance in an unfair and unforgiving society, the voice of those who otherwise would not be heard. Under the auspices of the big tent welcoming the unwelcome, those who were not accepted elsewhere were embraced by those who relished the role of the non-judgmental.

Until, of course, the opportunity arose where the Party leaders could sandbag a gay congressman and use him as political chum to try to take over the House and Senate in the upcoming 2006 election.

The real details of the plot have started to emerge: the original e-mail, maybe “over-friendly”, maybe not. Certainly a stretch to justify a wholesale panic investigation of the House leadership. Who was it that went public with the information? None other than an employee of the Human Rights Campaign. Gives a whole new meaning to the term political suicide”!

There are way too many legitimate questions that have yet to be asked, let alone answered, about this entire mess. But there is one that I have to place on the table: How can Nancy Pelosi explain to her constituents from the Bay area – many of whom are gay – that she has no problem being a ring leader in destroying the reputation, the career, and the life of a gay man for her own personal and political gain?

Lest you think I alone am troubled by this phenomena, spend a few minutes reading Camille Paglia’s interview in Salon, where she castigates her party.
“I was especially repulsed by the manipulative use of a gay issue for political purposes by my own party. I think it was not only poor judgment but positively evil. Whatever short-term political gain there is, it can only have a negative impact on gay men… Why don’t the Democratic strategists see this? These tactics are extremely foolish…What in the world are the Democrats thinking? We saw the beginning of this in that grotesque moment in the last presidential debates when John Kerry came out with that clearly prefab line identifying Mary Cheney as a lesbian. Since when does the Democratic Party use any gay issue in this coldblooded way as a token on the chessboard? You’d expect this stuff from right-wing ideologues, not progressives…”

The dirty little secret? The Dems have done this for years. The gays are just the most recent example.

Pathetic.

I can’t stand it any longer! The hypocrisy and demagoguery of the holier-than-thou factions that attempt to paint “lobbyists” as the scourge of a democratic and free society are enough to piss off the Pope.

A recent poll suggests that an overwhelming majority of the Montana electorate supports this year’s ballot initiative to reign in those yucky scoundrels. Newspaper articles and our charismatic governor continually characterize elected officials as “representing all the people” and lobbyists as representing “one special interest group”. How noble! How philosophical! How nauseating!

Lobbyists are not a “necessary evil” – they are a necessary ELEMENT in a representative democracy.

Think for a minute: “An elected official represents all the people”. Wanna see half of the people in this country go nucking futs – tell them George Bush represents them. Get real! An elected official represents the majority of the voters – not people! – of the district from which he was elected (except for the President and the Electoral College thing, but let’s leave that alone for this discussion – the point’s still valid). In this country, that often means that more citizens in any given district did not vote for the winner as voted for him. Every district is made up of myriads of folks with a plethora of differing opinions on different issues. There is no way any one elected official can begin to represent all of them all!

Lobbyists, on the other hand, generally do represent a single issue, group, organization, or – oh horrors! – company – a “Special Interest Group”. It is their job to constantly watch what is going on in Congress or the Legislature and to make sure that the elected officials know how their particular group feels about a given piece of legislation. The alternative would be for every single citizen to be in Washington DC and/or Helena every day that congress or the legislature is in session, attending every hearing and testifying on every bill that could conceivably affect them one way or the other. Just think – 900,000 Montanans in Helena every other winter for three months. Mind-boggling? You bet your bippy! More to the point – after spending all that time tracking every piece of legislation, preparing and presenting testimony, lobbying as it were, for or against whatever issues float your boat – when would you have time to earn a living, raise your kids, blog your brains out, or whatever it is that you do to fill the days? No matter how you feel about any issue – if some level of government can regulate it, tax it, fund it, or otherwise impact it – there will be highly paid professionals out there bird-dogging it on behalf of their clients. Thank God. Otherwise we’d have our elected officials representing only those dedicated citizens who have the time and inclination to contact them.

The recent uproar and folderol over lobbyists and members of congress should generate some honest debate about how our system works and what, if anything, needs to be done. The demagogic value judgment that lobbyists are inherently evil is counter-productive to a healthy and representative democratic government.