It looks like the official House of Representatives debate record needs to open an account with turnitin.com. According to an article in The New York Times, a whole bunch of the speeches given by Democrats and Republicans over the course of the health care debate were copy and pasted from a single source.
What’s really scary is whom the representatives are letting do their homework: Lobbyists for Genentech, one of the largest biomedical companies in the world and a generous campaign contributor.
More than a dozen representatives used at least part of what was sent to them by a ghostwriter — some of them going the extra mile and just using the whole thing. It’s estimated that about 42 representatives used some of the suggestions from lobbyists in their official statements.
If the House Ethics Committee were anything like our Office of Student Conduct, heads would be rolling about now.
To be fair, this is a case of lobbyists doing their job. Lobbyists are supposed to supply legislators with facts, counterarguments, talking points and the like. Representatives aren’t judged so much on their speech composition and overall originality. If somebody else can say it better, then maybe they should.
Even if this means America’s lobbyists are getting their job done, this certainly isn’t a case of inspiring leadership on the part of our reps.
In some cases, representatives were on the record making identical speeches. It’s one thing to bring forward a unified front with a cohesive message, but we’re talking about elected officials reciting word for word something they got in an e-mail from a lobbying firm.
You might expect Joe “You lie!” Wilson to have no problem injecting some personality into his records or at least departing from the script, but even he was one of the copy-paste-cats. Come on, this is the guy who couldn’t stick to the script when all he had to do was stay quiet while the president talked.
The lobbyists were even so helpful as to write a version for Republicans and a version for Democrats. That’s cool. They’re on the ball. One could say that these are the kind of go-getters that should be doing the work in congress, but they’re so good that they’re already on it.
Does this sound silly to you? Cause it should. Folks don’t get to elect lobbyists, but apparently those are the people that get a very big say in what comes out of the mouths of our representation.
In the debate over how health care will look in our country, there are people paid to look out for our interests who can scarcely take the time to tweak the stuff they take from another author.
Now that’s just lazy.
If I went about my work as a student the way these representatives go about debating for health care reform, I would lose my scholarships, maybe get expelled — either way, I’d be out of school and lose both of my jobs.
That’s what that kind of slacking would get me: a fast track to unemployment and a forfeited education. My folks would be disappointed, but ultimately I’m only hurting myself in this hypothetical.
When representatives don’t turn in their own work, they’re only cutting corners on how well they represent the wants and needs of their constituents.
The silver lining on the whole thing is that the number of representatives with conspicuously similar speeches was split evenly between republicans and democrats. When it came time to vote on healthcare reform the vote was split down party lines, but they could at least agree on who would be writing their speeches for the debate.
The House has already started explaining away the situation. Aides have been blamed and side-steps have been made.
A Genentech lobbyist even said it happens all the time, but does that make you feel any better about it?
2 comments
It now looks like this may bring an end of America as we know it now. The end of the supremacy of the dollar in the near future will be a result of this stupidity and greed in the financial markets. If such a thing were to happen in the chemical, biological and genetic circles of manufacturing, no one has any idea of the death and terror from pestilence, failure of invented crops and global famine and and invented diseases which all human history has not prepared us for. They are opening Pandora's box with no regard for anyone or anything except profit and their own faith in their abilities and their word that they can be trusted. Even Frankenstein and his monster were not so vain. The fact that the politicians love money and power and dance to the tune of the companies songs, guarantees no control over over these technologies is possible. It s only a matter of time until an accident or an intentional action bring us as a species to the brink of extinction. It to me is only a matter of time. To the politicians it is clear, it is only a matter of money!