A 74-year-old congressman stricken with an especially deadly form of cancer was chosen today to be the top Democrat in charge of oversight, a watchdog role that will oversee investigations into public corruption and wrongdoing over the next two years.
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Doctors I interviewed took a uniformly dim view of Connolly’s prognosis, expressing shock that he hasn’t resigned, much less been passed up for the demanding oversight role.
“This man is clearly dying,” a Pennsylvania-based surgeon told me, requesting that their name not be used in order to comment candidly. “This is insanity.”
For fucks sake, this is infuriating. Choosing between a young, extremely popular, highly effective congresswoman and a dying man few people have heard of, should have been the easiest choice ever for one of the most important House committees.
It depends. Are you looking out for the American people, and aware that your career forever if not your very literal physical survival over the next few years will depend on having people in important roles who are smart and tenacious and have some proven popularity with the people they are representing?
Or, are you a money-corrupted ghoul so addled by campaign contributions and sociopathic consultants that the very idea of someone who’s there for reasons other than fabulous wealth for you and your friends is abhorrent, to the point that you would never let that person anywhere near power, because the mere thought of her and what she knows you to be, inspires in you nothing but nervousness and hatred?
I don’t think “both sides” and I think we need allies in power right now, even if they are the Democrats. But also, if the Democrats were going to do something about Trump, they would have at some point in the last four years. They’re going to keep sleepwalking, most of them, until firing squads come into the capitol looking for them.