Friday, January 27, 2006

My Day was Terrible and Awesome

First, the good:

Wednesday night, Trina & I were able to feel Summer's elbow/knee sticking out. It was kinda cool. Same thing yesterday morning. Last night, as I had my head down on Trina's belly talking to the baby, she (Summer) kicked me in the face. While it was a solid kick, it was pretty cool.

Now, the bad:

Wednesday day, I had to sit for two hours and listen to two Assistant Attorneys General (two steps down from the Attorney General) lie, mislead, refuse to answer and otherwise obstruct Congress's legitimate inquiry into the legality of the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program. How do I know that they were doing this? Aside from major contradictions and whatnot in what they were saying, I had written statements in front on me from President Bush, Attorney General Gonzalez and General Hayden (former Director of the NSA) that contradicted what they were saying. So either Bush & co. were lying or the two AAGs were lying. Take your pick. Listening to them for two hours straight really got under my skin. I wanted to nail them to the wall (in very un-gentleman-like terms). As I raise my hand to start asking questions to show their inconsistentsies and flat-out lies, my boss sends our intern over to tell me not to ask any questions. Period. Why? Because of a cock-and-bull story that he feeds me about how he's playing both sides of the aisle on this one and didn't want either the Republicans or Dems to know how we felt about it. (I personally want to hammer the Administration on this one.) I think that my boss is playing both sides because he keeps getting swayed by one side or the other and can't make up his mind (and has indicated such to me over the past few weeks). I also think that he lacks the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the administration (as he consistently and inevitably kowtows to them on everything that we do). Maybe it's just that our boss is unwilling to stand up to the Administration. Considering that he's one of the most independent members of Congress, that's really bad. No wonder that the Administration ignores Congress on everything. Congress deserves to be ignored. (Two federal mine safety administrations walked out in the middle of a hearing because they felt that it wasn't worth their time. That's quite typical of this Administration's behavior). So I listened for two hours to these two AAGs spewing forth their *&&##*%!#$@$#* and I can't do a thing about it. Afterwards, I storm out of the meeting and go take a long walk and call Trina. She said that she's never seen me more angry in the entire time that she's known me. It really got under my skin. So, yeah. That was my day. Force to listen to two liars from the government and my boss doesn't have the guts to nail them to the wall where they belong. Unless he's willing to nail them to the wall in the smaller meetings, he'll never make a dent in the hearings, as they're very scripted.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow Adam, that really sucks. The AAG thing, not the baby kicking. I remember going through that with both Brooke and Bryan, and it truly is a cool experience. But it's just a little tiny taste of what you'll feel when she's born, and you get to hold her in your arms. It's one of those candle-to-sunlight comparisons.

Eric said...

This is the kind of political stuff I think belongs on the blog. It's a story about you, not something you picked up off the news.

I do feel for you though, the frustration resulting from the conflict of what you feel is right in the moment versus what your boss wants you to do. Frustration is probably too weak a word for it though.

There are a lot of lines to follow here, but I'll abstain, read what Trina wrote, and just say "that's rough. I feel for you."

Frank and Evelyn said...

What a day for you. I'm glad that you had the experience of getting kicked by Summer to help you realize why you go to work every day. It's so frustrating when you can't say or do the things you know need to be said or done. Don't they think people will figure out that someone is lying? I guess you'll just have to wait until you're in office so you can ask questions that need to be asked.